Catherine Lowell

The Madwoman Upstairs Catherine Lowell

In this smart and enthralling debut in the spirit of The Weird Sisters and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the only remaining descendant of the Bronte family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues left behind by her eccentric father. Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. As the last remaining descendant of the Bronte family, she's rumored to have inherited a vital, mysterious portion of the Brontes' literary estate-diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts-a hidden treasure that has not been shown outside of the family. But Samantha has never seen this rumored estate, and as far as she knows, it doesn't exist. She has no interest in acknowledging what the rest of the world has come to find so irresistible-namely, the sudden and untimely death of her eccentric father or the cryptic estate he has bequeathed to her. But everything changes when Samantha enrolls at Oxford University and bits and pieces of her past start mysteriously arriving at her doorstep, beginning with an old novel annotated in her father's handwriting. As more and more bizarre clues arrive, Samantha soon realizes that her father has left her an elaborate scavenger hunt using the world's greatest literature. With the aid of a handsome and elusive Oxford professor, Samantha must plunge into a vast literary mystery and an untold family legacy, one that can only be solved by decoding the clues hidden within the Brontes' own writing. A fast-paced adventure from start to finish, this vibrant and original novel is a moving exploration of what it means when the greatest truth is, in fact, fiction.