" 'He's not for you!' I exclaimed, just as a bird in a cage across the room began to trill. 'See that canary over there - I would no sooner set it free in the park this winter's day than suggest you spread your wings and fly away with such a man. You don't know him at all. He'd crush you like a sparrow's egg. He is the wolf to your lamb. He'd tear your throat out with his teeth and laugh to see you bleed to death.' "
I have been saving this ARC like a future treasure. Catherine is a retelling of Wuthering Heights and so I wanted to wait to read it, until after I had seen the new movie. I knew that I would want to prolong the movie vibes, so I kept this book on standby ready. I did really enjoy the film, even though it only tells half the story of Emily Bronte's classic novel, and key characters are missing entirely. However, the 2026 film isn't meant to be a faithful adaptation of the original text, but more of a romantic spin-off.
The original novel isn't a romance! It's meant to be a dark and twisted exploration of toxic relationships, prejudice, vengeance, generational abuse and trauma. Instead of sweet passion there is only obsession, instead of love there is only possession. That's not love or romance. It's abuse, as the abused becomes the abuser. As a character Heathcliff could be described as a sociopath at best, a psychopath at worst, so he is certainly not a romantic hero. He is a classic Byronic anti-hero. Recent woke agendas have declared Heathcliff to be of black origin. However, I studied the Bronte's work, including Wuthering Heights, at Oxford and the accepted academic theory is that Heathcliff was most likely to be of Romany-Irish traveller origin, hence why he is often referred to as a gypsy.
Whatever his origins, Heathcliff is a character that has captured the imagination for almost 200 years. I must confess though, that Wuthering Heights is not my favourite Bronte novel. It is emotionally heavy reading, it is full of suffering and there isn't one single likable character in the entire book! That said, it's not a book that you ever forget. Once you've read it, Emily's world stays with you in some deep, dark part of your psyche. Her original novel can be a bit of chore to read, as the author is deliberately setting out to confuse her readers with similar names for her characters, hints at a past that is never fully revealed or explained, suggestions of incest and the muddied lineage of the characters and inter-cousin relationships. Factor in the oblique Victorian language-style and well, it's messy, to say the least - although there will always be the ignorant romantic who waxes lyrical on how wonderful Heathcliff is and how romantic the novel is - and they are perfectly free to die on that hill.
But Wuthering Heights isn't a romance and it was never meant to be.
It's meant to be dark and twisted.
So it was long past time that the old classic was given a makeover and that is exactly what Catherine is. In this book, the author, Essie Fox, stays very close to Emily Bronte's original text. Her plotlines run parallel with the Bronte classic that we all know, no characters are omitted and all the main events happen as per the original novel. In this book though, it is the ghost of Catherine herself who is the narrator, rather than the outsider, Mr Lockwood. This gives the novel such a feeling of immediacy and authenticity that, at times, I forgot that I was reading a retelling. It also helps to make the original Bronte novel much more accessible, as Catherine is well-written but without the extremely convoluted, labyrinthine language of the classic. Whilst all the indigenous twists and turns are still there, they are presented in a much more straight-forward and modern literary way, so the book is a pleasure to read.
Here we get to know Cathy from her own perspective, rather than through the eyes of the often spiteful Nelly Dean of the classic. It is Cathy who speaks to us of her childhood, of her beloved moors and the vastness of nature that becomes her church, of her relationships and her ever-growing feelings for Heathcliff. We witness her wrestling with her conscience as she tries to be a good influence on her foundling friend, but only ends up having tantrums of her own. We feel the freedom of the moors through her experiences and what a blissful escape from trauma and abuse it was to both her and Heathcliff, and how this shared escape to freedom solidified their emotional bond. She is still the wilful Cathy that we know and love, yet her voice has softened slightly, as she recounts her story with the benefit of ghostly hindsight. In this novel, we are Cathy, just as Cathy is Heathcliff!
This POV and first person narrative makes it feel as if you are right at the heart of the story, in a way in which the original novel does not, because Bronte's intention was for the reader to experience the feeling of being the outsider, someone who is always looking in, but never quite included, much as Heathcliff was an outcast. In Catherine, the reader is very much included in the story and so you get to witness it unfold first-hand, one tragic piece of the puzzle at a time.
Catherine has been a fantastic read and I ripped through it in just a couple of days. It's a very pretty book, with cover art reminiscent of the Bronte Parsonage in Yorkshire, the home of the Bronte sisters. It also has beautiful end pages and sprayed edges with an avian, corvid theme. If you are a Bronte fan then you will probably enjoy this retelling of Wuthering Heights. It is just the thing to prolong the highly-romanticised Heathcliff vibes from the new movie, which is a must-see as it is such a beautiful and picturesque film.
However, if you're looking for a film that adheres to the original Bronte text, I recommend the 1992 version with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, which is fabulous and appropriately dark and twisted!
In the meantime, I'm off to play the new Wuthering Heights soundtrack from the latest movie and make plans for a day out on the Yorkshire Moors. Happy reading.
Serene Blessings
Marie x
AD: This book was sent to me by the publisher prior to its release for the purposes of review. It was published on February 12th in hardcover, digital and audio formats.
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