A pivotal summer in the life of Maria Branwell, the mother of the Brontë sisters

In imagined diary entries from the summer of 1812, twenty-nine-year-old Maria Branwell is pondering a momentous choice. Far from her Cornish home, working with her aunt and uncle at their Methodist boys’ school on the moors of Yorkshire, she has just been introduced to the Irish clergyman Patrick Brontë. The two are powerfully drawn to one another, resulting in a proposal Maria accepts wholeheartedly—yet reservations begin to surface. From her earliest years she has felt marked by an uncommon destiny, one she had assumed incompatible with an ordinary life of marriage and children. Does marriage fit into that destiny? Or is there a different path to take? The choice of this woman forgotten by history will alter the course of literature forever.

KATHLEEN HILL is the author of two previous novels (both published by Northwestern University Press) and a memoir, She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons, recipient of the Nautilus Book Award. Her novels Still Waters in Niger and Who Occupies This House were both named notable books by The New York Times and won numerous awards. Her short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Book of Short Stories. Hill lives in New York City and taught for years in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.