Fans of the Brontës will adore this beautiful and believable fictionalised glimpse into life in the Haworth Parsonage from writer Karen Powell. The story is told by Emily, the second youngest Brontë, as she and her sisters head out into the world to seek accomplishments so they can help provide an income for her increasingly-destitute family. She is willing to sacrifice time on her beloved moors and knuckle down to her studies, but despite her determination, life away from home is not easy: the sisters seek comfort in each other, and when sickness brings them back to the moors and then cruelly divides them forever, the remaining siblings retreat into fantastical imagined lands, escaping the harsh reality of their unforgiving existence and exploding into creativity.

This account of the writer’s short life is stunningly rendered, with beautiful depictions of the changing seasons and extremes of weather encountered by the family. Powell somehow manages to create genuine heart-in-mouth moments of peril even though the facts of the sisters’ hard existence and too-short lives are well-documented. It feels wrong to describe this book as a delight, because the tragic events of the Brontës’ lives feel cruel enough when simply listed, and experiencing them from Emily’s point of view is deeply painful – yet the moments of joy in their lives somehow become magnified when set against such hardship, and the love that Emily has for the natural world is magnificently conveyed. A must-read family saga that makes the perfect gift for a Brontë aficionado.

There’s something rather special about Fifteen Wild Decembers for not only does the story transport us to the isolated Haworth parsonage where the Brontë’s made their home but it also gives us huge insight into Emily Brontë’s tragically short life. Emily’s emotional attachment to the moors and wild spaces, the lure of home whenever she is away from it and the visceral connection she has to the land bring such a powerful sense of her personality that it quite literally took my breath away. Emily’s life was so short and yet the mark she left on our literary world is huge, this re-imagining of her life is such a lovely tribute to her and one I am sure will appeal enormously to Brontë enthusiasts.

The story flows beautifully, it’s gently done, but with such a powerful presence that each of the siblings, their anguish, indecision and inability to find their place in the world is bolstered only by their strength of character. Having visited the Haworth parsonage on a number of occasions as soon as you enter through the front door there remains a definite sense of the Brontë presence and this brooding nature comes across so well in this lovely story, I felt as if I was truly seeing the world through Emily’s eyes, grieving with her in sadness and feeling her turmoil in a world she didn’t always want to understand. We know that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë had tremendous imagination and yet sharing their work with a London publisher wasn’t easy however, thankfully for us someone was prepared to give Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell the opportunity to reach a wider audience and the rest, as they say, is history…

Very obviously not a badly written book, but I am simply good enough of a reader for it. I think it’s a decent book but it didn’t hold my interest enough because the narrative relied quite heavily on a lot of the speculations made about the elusive Emily Brönte that most fans of hers would have already known enough of. I can only hope that copies of it find themselves in the hands of better readers. I certainly like Emily Brönte too much to like this re-imagined narrative about her ‘life’. And because of it, my experience of Powell’s book was inevitably compromised.

An admirable quality of Powell’s book, I would say, lies in the simplicity of the writing. I can imagine the text to be very accessible to almost any reader acquainted enough with the English Language, including children. One really does not need to read between the lines, it’s all rather ‘straightforward’. However, I prefer something that is more of a complicated mess even if often those kinds of writing may prove to be a bit challenging or too layered. I suppose I want a flipping millefeuille, and something slightly more cerebral. And that is obviously more of a personal issue and a matter of literary preference.

But I am curious who the ‘target readers’ are? What kind of readers in particular does the writer have in mind when writing this book? My guess is a more 'general’ crowd of readers, and surely not readers who are already fans of Emily Brönte. So with that in mind, if a prospective reader of the book has only a vague or barely any idea about Emily Brönte, this would be a really good introduction – a kind of gateway to Wuthering Heights for those who have not read it. If that is the case, I think the book would be quite perfect.

Fifteen Wild Decembers follows Emily Brontë from her childhood days at school to her early death. The novel follows the ups and downs of her life and career as she branches out into the world and transforms into a published author. It's a fairly straightforward narrative told from Emily's point of view and the novel is well structured and paced. There are a few oddities in the story that jar with the overall narrative though such as Emily spying on a young couple on the moors. The only problem is that it doesn't add anything new to the Brontës' lives and legacies barring the possibly misjudged scene on the moors, and there is no fresh spin on the depiction of their personalities and relationships with one another. An enjoyable read.

This is a fictionalised account of Emily Brontë's life told from her viewpoint. It's an important and clever account as it sets Emily firmly in her world and pulls few punches with regards to Charlotte (Charlotte was never that nice about Emily). You can really see where Wuthering Heights came from, and just how challenged Emily was by the life she had been dealt. A lover of nature, and uncomfortable around people, she came across as different and also determined to ensure her writing was also. The Brontë's had a pretty hellish existence in many ways, all of them dead before their father. I shed a few tears at the end for Emily. She never got to know the influence her book had or find her kindred spirits. Beautiful prose throughout, this stands alone as a superb read for a cosy winter night in as the wind howls outside and the branches tap on the window.

Utterly brilliant.
Written from the POV of Emily Bronte, Fifteen Wild Decembers is the beautifully tragic story of the Bronte sisters' journey to publication.
I lost myself in the descriptions of the Yorkshire Moors, in the day-to-day chores of the parsonage kitchen, in the desperate attempts to deal with brother Branwell's addiction.
Although years ago I enjoyed lengthy Juliet Barker's biography of the Brontes, this dramatised account of their lives will probably stick with me for longer.

Thanks to NetGalley and Karen Powell for an advance e-copy. I will definitely buy this in paperback.

What a wonderful novel. It grew on me for every page. Starting when the Brontë sisters were very young I found the voice a bit hard to get into. But gorgeous prose moved the story along nicely until we got into the thick of it in the middle.

‘But the mornings kept on coming, daytime hooking me like a fish, dragging me to the surface.’

The sister’s younger years are vital for understanding their literary vision and development as writers. I found it sad how isolated they seemed to be, carrying the burden of their sex and expectations from society. Their brother causing them a lot of grief and worry, they had a lot of obstacles to overcome, but I found them incredibly brave.

‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life.’

I could really feel Emily’s connection to the landscape, which seemed to be the only space she had for private reflection.
It was there she found inspirations for her material.
Fifteen Wild Decembers is a well researched and wonderfully written book.
Would recommend for Brontë, literary and historical fiction lovers.
4+ stars.

Thanks to NetGally for a free copy of this book in exchange for a review, opinions are my own.