My Brother’s Keeper Review
By Sioph LealA widowed preacher and his family, including three daughters and their promiscuous brother Bramwell, reside in a parsonage on the moors' edge. Even though Charlotte, Emily, and Anne will be celebrated in the future, they are currently unknown, their future brilliance hidden. They will all pass away in a matter of years, and it will be middle sister Emily's coincidental encounter with a severely injured man on the moor that puts them on the road to their doom. There is a dreadful secret buried beneath a monument in the church, a dark legacy in the family Brontë tree, and an old pagan secret that stalks the moors. Their very souls are on the line in addition to their lives.
My Brother’s Keeper attempts to do what many writers have done, put a supernatural spin on timeless classics with the likes of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and like that, My Brother’s Keeper is just as bizarre. From werewolves on the Yorkshire moors to demonic possession, there is a lot going on in this book but unfortunately, the different plots fall short of making it a compelling yet peculiar read.
Tim Powers' other books have a similar take by including a famous historical figure and adding them into a world filled with the supernatural. As someone who isn’t all too familiar with the Brontë’s, this book could have been an interesting take, but fell short of any sort of promise. Had the book been written from another perspective, maybe Bramwell as he entangled his family with demonic entities it could have been different, but Powers struggles to find any real identity to the characters. Had they not been based on real historical figures; I doubt it would have made much of a difference.
One of the main issues of My Brother’s Keeper is that there is no real voice for each of the characters, they all blend into one another and with the author coming in and out of different times in the characters lives, it can be difficult to get into the rhythm of the book. When there is some promise of an intriguing plot, the author adds another memory or discussion that feels more like a school project than a seasoned author.