Charlotte Brontë's eight-month span reveals how loss shapes genius and resilience amid shared tragedy and personal flaws.

There have been many books about the Brontës: their lives, their works; this book is different in that it focuses on the short, intensely poignant eight-month period when Charlotte suffered the loss of her siblings and the effect it had on her.

Branwell and Emily died within twelve weeks of each other, aged 31 and 30 respectively, and Anne five months later at the age of 29. Charlotte, who had regularly circled the dining room table with her sisters, discussing their ideas and their writing, continued to pace the room alone at night after their deaths.

This story looks at the lives of the Brontës with a sympathetic eye, but is also frank about how adulation has sometimes obscured the reality of their shortcomings. Branwell's failings are well-documented, but the sisters' insularity and often crippling lack of social skills are also examined, along with Charlotte's occasional tendency towards petulance.

Charlotte bore witness to Branwell's belated remorse over his descent into alcoholism and debt, Emily's typically courageous stoicism in the face of her rapid decline, and the poignant fulfilment of Anne's wish to gaze out across her beloved Scarborough coast one last time. Of Patrick Brontë's six children, Charlotte alone remained - now a fêted author, yet sadder and lonelier than ever. Just when marriage and pregnancy signalled the promise a new and happier phase, Charlotte's own life was tragically cut short at the age of 38.