This is a group biography of the three novelist sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, their poet/painter brother Branwell, and their father Patrick, picking apart the Bronte mythology to get at the truth. It's well researched with wonderful illustrations, including sketches by the Bronte siblings themselves. Barker managed to get me very invested and sympathetic with the Brontes as if they were fictional characters and I found myself crying several times. I was also surprised how much I liked the Bronte's father, Patrick, who has always been mythologized as gruff and tyrannical.