The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis
Towards the end of last year, I discovered that I had been missing out on a series of historical mystery books in which the Brontë sisters solve eerie crimes. Given that I also finished reading all of the novels of the Brontës last year, it seemed a good time to pick up this series inspired by their lives and writings. As someone who does not read much crime or mystery fiction, I always enjoy stepping into that genre and I knew from reading reviews that this would be a great book for escapism during the busy end of the Autumn term. I very much enjoyed stepping into this world in my lunchbreaks in the lead up to Christmas and getting to know Ellis’ interpretation of the Brontë sisters as characters.
The Vanished Bride is set in 1845, during a period in which all three of the Brontë sisters, as well as their brother Branwell, were living together back in Haworth after their various experiences of heartbreak, scandal, and job loss. With Branwell spiralling, and all dealing with their own internal conflicts, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are shocked to hear of a violent disappearance that has taken place in the house where their old school friend is a governess. After visiting, they come to realise that there is much more going on in the house than is being acknowledged and they decide to work together to uncover the truth themselves.
The benefit of using the Brontë sisters as the primary characters of a mystery narrative is that it allows Ellis to lean into gothic themes and elements. There are many aspects of The Vanished Bride that will feel familiar to readers of the Brontë novels themselves: a governess finds herself in a house with a dark past, navigating a complicated relationship with her unpredictable and sometimes violent employer; a discovery of secrets hidden in an attic; and past heartbreak and relationships seeping into the present. I was pleasantly surprised by the complexity of the mystery itself, following the Brontë sisters down every wrong turn and red herring until the denouement, finding it to be engaging throughout the narrative.
The Brontë sisters themselves are characterised much as we often see them in fictional depictions: Charlotte is the serious one, Emily the wild one, and Anne the kind one. The tension between the three of them mostly comes through the clash of their personalities, with Charlotte and Emily particularly engaging in a power struggle throughout the narrative. Although we see a little of them coming to an understanding of each other as the narrative moves to its climax, it would have been nice to see more of a conclusion to their conflict. One aspect of The Vanished Bride which surprised me was the fact that, although there is a focus on the relationships between the sisters, it is the sisters’ relationship with Branwell which gives the narrative real emotional weight. Although he is not on the page as much as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, their concern, frustration, and fear for him permeates each one of their perspectives, grounding the gothic themes of the mystery in an emotional realism that is deepened by the reader’s knowledge of what is to come for him.
Overall, I found The Vanished Bride to be an engaging and entertaining mystery, bringing to life an interpretation of the Brontë family using a mixture of historical and imagined events in their lives. Although I would have liked to have seen a little more nuance in the characterisation of the sisters, I enjoyed the depictions of their individual, and very different, relationships with their brother, their home, and their writing. As might be gathered by her pen name, it is clear from the characterisation that Ellis admires Emily Brontë more than the other two, but she still manages to make the reader invested in each of the sisters and their perspectives throughout the novel. I would recommend this to those who enjoy the writing of the Brontës and are looking for a lighter read inspired by their lives, as well as those who enjoy historical mysteries. I am looking forward to continuing on with the series soon.
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