Hugest amounts of gratitude go to my dear, dear friend, brilliant Julie Akhurst of my beloved Ponden Hall, who is the first to read my manuscripts, and who proofreads them and often helps me with research. Julie and her husband, Steve Brown, have made me feel like part of their Ponden family, and I count myself so lucky to have them in my life.

I have many reference books constantly on my desk, chief amongst them The Brontës by Juliet Barker; A Life in Letters, edited by Juliet Barker; At Home with the Brontës by Ann Dinsdale; The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, volumes one through three, edited by Margaret Smith; A Brontë Kitchen by Victoria Wright; The Letters of The Reverend Patrick Brontë, edited by Dudley Green; and of course the complete works of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, which inspire me constantly.

Thank you to my marvellous publishing teams on both sides of the Atlantic. Melissa Cox, Lily Cooper, Maddy Marshall and Steven Cooper at Hodder in the UK, and Michelle Vega, Lauren Burnstein, Jessica Plummer and Jennifer Snyder at Berkley in the US.

And huge thanks to everyone at David Higham agency, especially Lizzy Kremer, Maddalena Cavaciuti, Georgina Ruffhead, Alice Howe and the whole of the rights team, whose hard work on my behalf I am always grateful for.

During the course of finishing this book, the world changed forever due to a global pandemic, giving us all a less than welcome insight into what life was like for Charlotte, Emily and Anne, living day to day with an unseen illness that could prove to be fatal. Heartfelt thanks to everyone, everywhere, who is working to keep us safe and to find treatments and vaccines, and to all of those in publishing who are doing their best to get books to readers around the globe. We all need a good story in our lives now more than ever, and I really hope that by the time this book is published our troubles are behind us.

About the Author

Bella Ellis is the Brontë-esque pseudonym of an acclaimed author of numerous novels for adults and children. She first visited the former home of the Brontë sisters when she was ten years old. From the moment she stepped over the threshold she was hooked, and she embarked on a lifelong love affair with Charlotte, Emily, and Anne; their life; their literature; and their remarkable legacy.

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