Susan M. Wyler

I liked this one...but didn't totally love it. I guess the plot was supposed to follow Wuthering Heights but none of the characters were fleshed out enough to really portray that and the plot was quite thin and odd. The "raging Heathcliff" thing didn't really work well with Mead (Meadowscarp---a ridiculous name, sorry...).

I did like the descriptions of the manor and the moors---the settings were all great, actually. The entire plot was predictable from very early on, save one little detail about her falling from the tree as a child---which was nice and refreshing and likely the turning point for the whole thing. What was super refreshing, though, was reading an American author writing about England in a believable way. She accomplished this in a couple ways: 1---she didn't try to write dialogue phonetically (THANK YOU!!!), 2---she put enough detail in the book that the reader knew the setting was England but not so much that she abused stereotypes, and 3---she left enough detail out that it was clear she wasn't super familiar with England and was fine with that.

The story was a little too much fiction for me---real ghosts, stumbling upon discoveries too easily, and way too much weird intimacy. Also, playing on answers for Emily Bronte's secretive life was less satisfying to me than it probably would have been 6 or 7 years ago. I've been studying her so long, and with having visited her home as well, it almost felt like the author was spreading rumors about a distant relative. Just hit me weird, I guess.

All in all, though, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights will always be one of my top three favorite stories so it was fun to read something that took a different direction with it---even if it wasn't a super satisfying read.… (mehr)

I may be the one and only person who read Wuthering Heights and thought...whew, glad it's done. I can not say it's one of my top 5 books, i can not say it's even close to being a favorite like other reviewers. SO to compare Solsbury Hill to it and have it come up somehow lacking surprises me. Altho there are storyline correlations it's like comparing apples and oranges....
This is a contemporary novel, very well written i might add. Wuthering Heights is a classic. As enjoyable as SOLSBURY HILL was i wouldn't put it in the same class. Unfair to do critique it because of that difference.

Read it. But read it with the only expectation being that you'll enjoy it. THEN you'll see the connection perhaps and agree!… (mehr)