Wuthering Nights

by Emily Bronte and I J Miller

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

I will admit that my only knowledge of Wuthering Heights before discovering Wuthering Nights was from Twilight. Meaning I knew nothing except that there was a Catherine and a Heathcliff. However, I was sick of reading retellings without being familiar with the original, so I read it. I'm certainly glad I did, even though Wuthering Nights does contain enough of the original to not be confusing. It was really interesting to compare the originals to their sex driven counterparts. In fact, the new interpretations of these classic characters make more sense and I found them more sympathetic and understandable.

Oddly, I noticed that Catherine and Heathcliff definitely seem like the type of people who would use sex to release their frustrations and to manipulate others. I also believed their romance in Wuthering Nights, which I did not in Wuthering Heights. I'm not saying that sex equals love, but in this book their relationship was much more passionate. In the original it seemed like we were just told that they were in love, but never really saw it, which I think is the biggest improvement. They're also the main focus, with Cathy, Linton, and Hareton only appearing at the very end, which suited me just fine.

Wuthering Nights is full of wretched people doing dark and devious deeds. There's plenty of twisted surprises, but some of them seemed to added just for shock value rather than because it made sense for the characters. Heathcliff as a Dom makes perfect sense, but I think at times his dungeon scenes were a bit much. Overall, this was an interesting (and sometimes awkward) read, and I thought it was a vast improvement over the original. It won't go down in history as a sexy classic, but it certainly was entertaining!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.