This past fall I decided to update the look of my website. As always I wanted something Gothic and a bit creepy, but I also yearned for warmth and color. Again and again I came back to this image:
It struck me as both bleak and beautiful. Moreover it reminded me of the Yorkshire moors (like you see here) and thereby brought to mind all the Gothic tales of the Brontës. My genius web designer Maddee at xuni.com boosted the color and added my name. I love the final result, which you can see simply by scrolling to the top of this page.
To celebrate my new website, I’m giving away the Brontë-related items featured in the photo at the top of this post, each of which I enthusiastically recommend to Brontë fans! Read on to learn more about them:
Praise for Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life:
—“I thought that everything had already been said about the Brontës. But Samantha Ellis has looked at the family from a new angle, and in doing so brought Anne out of the shadows and placed her front and centre amongst her splashier siblings. I was wowed and moved” (Tracy Chevalier)
—“A fascinating and compelling read… what Ellis does extraordinarily well is to convey the emotion of her own deeply personal voyage of discovery about Anne and herself… [makes] you long to rush off and reread Anne’s novels and poetry: what more could you ask for?” (Juliet Barker)
–my take: This book brought me to tears more than once, and my perception of the youngest Brontë is forever altered by reading it.
Praise for The Glass Town Game:
—“A throwback to classic children’s literature: it has the cleverness of The Phantom Tollbooth, the imagination of Alice in Wonderland, the whimsy of Edward Eager…A lovely, fanciful piece of middle-grade fiction about the worlds we make, and the lives they can take on.” (Booklist, starred review)
—“The story’s real delights come from the wit and cleverness woven into every description and conversation, as well as the sharp insights Valente brings to the children’s insecurities, longings, and hidden desires, which burst to the surface in this magical and perilous world.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
–my take: A gorgeous tribute to the Brontës and the fictional worlds they created.
Also included:
Just for fun I’ve added a small Paperblanks journal decorated with Charlotte Brontë’s signature and lines from Jane Eyre. (These journals are no longer in production and are therefore pretty hard to find.) You’ll also receive a Brontë mug featuring Branwell’s drawing of the four siblings AND a volume of poems from all four Brontë siblings, along with a timeline and endnotes.
INTERNATIONAL ENTRANTS WELCOME!