Title: Blame It on the Brontes
Author: Annie Sereno
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: May 3rd, 2022
384 pages
3/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis
She’s going to write her own happy ending.
English professor Athena Murphy is an authority on the novels of the Brontë sisters. But as they say in academia, publish or perish. To save her job, Athena decides to write a biography of C.L. Garland, the author heating up bestseller lists with spicy retellings of classic literature. Tracking down the reclusive writer and uncovering her secret identity, though, means Athena must return to her small midwestern hometown where Garland—and her ex-boyfriend, Thorne Kent—live.
Seeing Thorne again reminds Athena that real life never lives up to fiction. He was the Heathcliff to her Catherine, the Mr. Rochester to her Jane. Not only did their college breakup shatter that illusion, but they also broke each other’s hearts again a second time. Now she has to see him nearly every…single…day.
The only solution is to find C.L. Garland as quickly as possible, write the book, and get the heck out of town. As her deadline looms and the list of potential C.L. Garlands dwindles, Athena and Thorne bicker and banter their way back to friendship. Could it really be true that the third time’s a charm?
Athena and Thorne have a love story only a Brontë could write, and the chance for their own happily-ever-after, but first, they’ll need to forgive the mistakes of the past.
Review
Blame it on the Bronte’s is a second chance romance with college lovers who broke up in dramatic fashion when neither would change their academic goals for each other. They meet up again in their hometown when the FMC is on sabbatical to write a book, and she needs to research a reclusive and unknown bestselling author who is rumored to be from the same town – in order to save her career. She doesn’t expect to run into her ex, who she hasn’t seen in many years.
I don’t have much good to say regarding this book, except that it was well written. There is a minor level of spice but this is less a romance novel and more women’s fiction with a side helping of romance.
I think I need to stop trying to make myself like Bronte retellings because I almost never enjoy them. The MC in this book is like my least favorite kind of smart, educated female in academia. Everything about this character annoyed me throughout the book, and the hero wasn’t much better to be honest. They both moved through the world as if they were martyrs and the weight of the world was on their shoulders – for no good reason really. They weren’t nice to each other, their friends, or even people they didn’t know. They were both users and were nice to others for their own gain.
Maybe they deserved each other, I don’t know, but this book was not at all for me and I got very little enjoyment out of it.
Thank you to Forever and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
Happy reading, folks!
Baltimore Bibliophile 