My Brother's Keeper

My Brother's Keeper is the eleventh stand-alone novel by award-winning American author, Tim Powers. In March of 1846, aspiring author, Emily Bronte is walking with her big mastiff, Keeper on the Yorkshire moors when she encounters a seriously injured man. He seems to know of her father, the curate at Haworth, and insists he doesn't need her help, which turns out to be so.

She later learns that he is one of the Huberti, a French Catholic cult intent on stopping the predation of lycanthropes in the North country, and has just killed a regent werewolf. After this, her widowed father, Patrick reveals some shocking facts about the family's history with these creatures.

It's perhaps an interesting idea, to take all the known facts about a famous nineteenth Century literary family and entwine into their lives werewolves, ghosts (of people and dogs), a pagan goddess, rituals, men who wear eye parches and carry parallel-bladed dioscuri knife, an entity that takes form using crows, a devil's head, and something nasty in under an inscribed slab in the church.

The story is told from multiple perspectives: mostly Emily's, and her brother Branwell's, with some contributions from members of the Obliques, and Keeper the dog. Powers depicts Branwell as a thoroughly weak and dissolute character, devoid of literary talent, selfish and easily tempted by the promise of importance, while Emily is smart, feisty and resourceful.

Powers probably really enjoyed the irony of having Branwell telling Emily: "I'm not like you -- I ache at anonymity, insignificance! Oh, I'm sorry, but -- you're content with the fact that a hundred years after you die, nobody will remember Emily Brontë. Or Anne, or Charlotte ... But I wanted to live on, I hoped even physically! -- for a hundred years, more, and have influence, power, respect." Powers does manage to give readers a reason for the scarcity of further completed works by the sisters, and a mechanism explaining the early death of three of the siblings.

Would the story have the same draw without the Bronte name so liberally scattered throughout? Is it better that all those tropes on the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies bandwagon? Hard to say if you haven't actually read any of those. It has a decent plot, with plenty of drama and action at the climax, so lovers of fantasy and the supernatural might enjoy it, but I think Bronte lovers are less likely to.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Head of Zeus.