I Am Heathcliff: Stories Inspired by Wuthering Heights

by Kate Mosse (Editor)

16 modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy.
Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love.

Sixteen stories inspired by Wuthering Heights.

In Terminus a young woman hides in an empty Brighton hotel; in Thicker Than Blood a man sits in a hot tub stalking his newly-married love on social media; and in A Bird Half-Eaten an amateur boxer prepares for a match.

A woman recalls the Heathcliffs I Have Known and the physical danger she has borne at their hands; in Anima a child and a fox are unified in one startling moment of violence; and in One Letter Different two teenagers walk the moors and face up to their respective buried secrets.

Curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018, these fresh, modern stories pulse with the raw beauty and pain of love and are as timely as they are illuminating.

The full list of contributors is:
Leila Aboulela, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Joanna Cannon, Alison Case, Juno Dawson, Louise Doughty, Sophie Hannah, Anna James, Erin Kelly, Dorothy Koomson, Grace McCleen, Lisa McInerney, Laurie Penny, Nikesh Shukla, Michael Stewart and Louisa Young.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Anthologies, Classics, Audiobook

293 pages, Hardcover

First published August 18, 2018

About the author

Kate Mosse is an international bestselling author with sales of more than five million copies in 42 languages. Her fiction includes the novels Labyrinth (2005), Sepulchre (2007), The Winter Ghosts (2009), and Citadel (2012), as well as an acclaimed collection of short stories, The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales (2013). Kate’s new novel, The Taxidermist’s Daughter is out now.
Kate is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (previously the Orange Prize) and in June 2013, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature. She lives in Sussex.

Reviews

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

an anthology of 16 short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights, with a forward by Kate Mosse, who curated the collection.

I enjoyed the anthology, and thought it was strong overall, even tho some of the stories didn't appeal/engage as much as others.


1. Terminus - Louise Doughty.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
palpably tense. very much the feeling of the tension within Wuthering Heights. the sea feels bit like the open expanse of the moors to me 🌊💙
Anya and the young guy too. a second generation?


2. Anima - Grace McCleen.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
a fox! a girl/young woman's love for, and inability to save, a fox 🧡🦊🤎
"a few minutes later, I heard the hunt"
"and I began to see that my worst fears were not dark enough"
the idea that the fox led the men and dogs, rather than it being determined their pursuit ♥
(the hunt fitting well with the time period and class stuff of Wuthering Heights).
absolutely gorgeous story. and well structured too - the reprieve, seeming escape, but just the second round...


3. A Bird Half Eaten - Nikesh Shukla.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
boxing, fighting... can feel the aspect of young Heathcliff in it/in the main character.
I really liked the build of intensity in the dynamic between the narrator and the guy at the club - the initial encounter to the later fight - it felt intimate, powerful, transformational... ♥


4. Thicker Than Blood - Erin Kelly.
🌟 🌟 🌟
bit too close to the original to feel original. kinda just the relationships reset in more contemporary times (2017 is mentioned). Heath, Cat, Ed and Izzy.
tho a slightly interesting culmination.
but fairly immediately forgotten....


5. One Letter Difference - Joanna Cannon.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Elis and Leo (the Heathcliff character I think).
a family holiday, a walk on the moors...
the space the moor gives for words, taking about stuff ♥
a nice story about bereavement, and the beauty of the moors 🙂


6. The Howling Girl - Laurie Penny
🌟 🌟
this one didn't engage me as much as others. the reader? the writing? the content?
the dialogue felt abit clunky.... and some phrases seemed there more to kinda showcase them as clever turns of phase ?!? 🙃
life and death, again. a ghost. annoying character(s).


7. Five Sites, Five Stages - Lisa McInerney.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 .5
Heidi and Cass. the mocking banter between/shared by the two.
Cass's brother, and Cass in hospital.
Heidi as Heathcliff in this one, her mix of violence and care, disliked by Cass's brother. class, mental health. the nature of love ♥
the 5 sites and the 5 stages - in a relationship? of grief? of the cross? (how many are there of those?).
the end was abit abrupt, tho also appropriate 🙂


8. Kit -Juno Dawson.
🌟 🌟 🌟 .5
I enjoyed the writing, and the reader 😃 not an especially new story, but nicely executed, I think 🙂


9. My Eye is a Button on your Dress - Hanan Al-Shaykh. (translation from Arabic by Catherine Cobham).
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 .5
a passionate affair, narrated by the woman, Amal. Yusuf, her lover, the Heathcliff figure. "I pursued him like a dog follows his master". their relationship set against the politics of the 'Arab Spring', around Tahrir Square, and his marriage.
meeting after a 5 year separation, back in Cairo, Amal travelling from London where she now lives and works. she finds him much changed by illness (since 2 years). and that she's been invited, not by him, but by his wife imitating him by letter and email, to be his nurse. in her room, the copy of Wuthering Heights she gifted him some years ago.
holds some of the wicked twistedness of the original 😁


10. The Cord - Alison Case.
🌟 🌟 🌟 .5
Heathcliff on the moors. atmospheric. the tension and pain of the cord that tethers him to Cathy and Wuthering Heights. he tries to break the cord, to assert his independence, "I am Heathcliff" 🙂


11. Heathcliffs I Have Known - Louisa Young.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
assault, assault... but it's OK cos he loves you. codependency.
I enjoyed this story, the voice and account of relationships/men (Heathcliffs) she's dated 🙂
"...she is yours, made of the same stuf., she is you" (referencing a daughter in this instance).
really nicely constructed and reworked 😊


12. Amulet and Feathers - Leila Aboulela.
🌟 🌟 🌟 .5
Maryam... wanting to avenge her father's death.
interestingly applied.
I liked the world in which it was set - physically and culturally, magically too 🦚🙂
"I wanted to see the face of evil, and I saw a beautiful girl".


13. How Things Disappear - Anna James.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
an unusual child, then young woman, whose body comes and goes abit, starts to disappear in places. I thought this was really beautifully written - some of the language and the images painted, and the complexity of meanings ♥


14. The Wildflowers - Dorothy Koomson.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
initially feels like a kind of reversal, the relationship between Zilla and Fabian - Fabian a rich white boy, and Zilla a young brown woman. Fabian's mothers disapproval. Fabian's grandfather's enigmatic "I am Heathcliff".
oo, a great twist! 😃😁


15. Heathcliff is not my name - Michael Stewart.
🌟 🌟 🌟
nicely descriptive of the landscape and moors. nice language too, including some Yorkshire dialect 🙂
I didn't like how gendered alot of the cursing and swearing was 😕 and/or might just have been the delivery 🤔
seemed a simple retelling of part of the original. tho I think a good retelling of it from Heathcliff's perspective 🙂


16. Only Joseph - Sophie Hannah.
🌟 🌟 .5
an unsolved murder at a school. a boy at school whose interest in a girl at the school creates discomfort. a parent visiting another school with the thought of maybe transferring their child. a Wuthering Heights based musical is referenced 😉
I didn't much like this one either 😕 I found the parent's voice/opinions annoying. the language/writing felt boring, and the narration possibly exacerbated my response 🤔🙃


shame to end on a couple of less strong/enjoyable stories 😕 (tho aware this could be subjective, and others might have enjoyed these last two more).


🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟


accessed as a RNIB audiobook, read by Dami Olukoya, Lucy Brownhill, Lara Sawalha, Freddie Gaminara, Karen Cogan, Hanan al-Shaykh, Joanna Cannon.

[Sentranced Jem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like the title suggests, this is book has stories inspired by one of my favourite books of all time, Wuthering Heights.

Really enjoyed reading I Am Heathcliff 💕

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 16 stories commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018.
In different ways they illustrate the raw attraction, pain and passion of love in a modern setting.
The titles of the stories give a clue to the overall flavour (see below).

The stories, taking their cue from Emily Bronte’s romance of Catherine and Heathcliff, were each like an essay pitching their own view on this duo. I enjoyed listening to all 16 stories for different reasons, and the ones that stood out dared to show love in its wild and uncomfortable nature, this ranged from passion to obsession to murder.

This is the kind of collection I wish I had at hand when I first tried to read Wuthering Heights (as it took me a few reads for me to grasp its daring spirit and courage to write such a novel). In its own time the novel’s untamed nature completely shocked the public – this daringness comes through in these short stories – sometimes in full brutal force.

To enjoy these, it’s not necessary to have Emily Bronte’s novel as, in her preface, Kate Mosse, who curated the collection, also gives a fairly in-depth summary of the first part of Wuthering heights which these 16 focus on.



-------------
Titles and authors of the 16 stories are:
Louise Doughty -- ‘Terminus’
Grace McCleen -- ‘Anima’
Nikesh Shukla -- ‘A bird half-eaten’
Erin Kelly --‘Thicker Than Blood’
Joanna Cannon -- ‘One Letter Different’
Laurie Penny -- ‘The Howling Girl’
Lisa McInerney -- ‘Five Sites Five Stages’
Juno Dawson -- ‘Kit’
Hanan Al-Shaykh -- ‘My Eye is a Button on Your Dress’
Alison Case -- ‘The Cord’
Louisa Young -- ‘Heathcliffs I Have Known’
Leila Aboulela -- ‘Amulet and Feathers’
Anna James -- ‘How Things Disappear’
Dorothy Koomson -- ‘The Wildflowers’
Michael Stewart -- ‘Heathcliffs is not my Name’
Sophie Hannah -- ‘Only Joseph’

[Elaine Howlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights. I enjoyed each one of the sixteen stories included which is rare for a short story collection. Some were inspired by themes in the novel and some were more like retellings but each one made a strong impression. 

Some left me feeling uneasy, others made me angry and others left me feeling a bit disturbed. I highly recommend reading this whether you're a fan of Wuthering Heights or not.

I listened to the audio version but I will be buying the print edition to reread and make notes.


Read more reviews and other bookish content on my blog https://elainehowlin.com

[Harriet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. I enjoyed the concept but it ended up taking me a long time to read because some of the stories were a lot better than others. I really enjoyed the ones with ghosts and things unseen. Less so much the stories where Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship was exactly mirrored in modern day tales. Wuthering Heights is gothic and creepy and awesome, I don’t want it washed out in a city or a school!

[ritvika · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★★
3.1/5

binge-read it in an afternoon; gotta admit thicker than blood was the most similar to wuthering heights but in terms of 'retelling' the classic, terminus was the most accurate.

[Claire (Silver Linings and Pages) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to @harpercollinsire for kindly sending this review copy.
.
I don’t feel very confident about commenting on short stories, because I have a tendency to avoid them, but here goes! It has only taken me the guts of 10 months to finish this book, and I’m glad to have read it. It was very thought provoking.
.
This collection of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights was published to celebrate the bicentenary of Emily Brontes birth. There were some really good, emotive stories that would make great bases for longer ones, but a few I wasn’t overly keen on. I don’t shy away from gritty books with difficult themes, and in fact I often seek out stories that provoke an intense reaction, but I felt a bit weary towards the end of this. Unsurprisingly, as Wuthering Heights is about cruelty and revenge, this is filled with loss, toxicity, violence and injustice. Be warned if you plan to read it, that one story contains necrophilia - it was a shock twist and I actually wish I hadn’t read that one!

[Helen Carolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a huge fan of "Withering heights" I really wanted to read this one. A short story collection based o Emily Bronte's classic novel, edited by Bronte fan Kate Mosse. Enjoyed some of the stories more than others but a terrific read overall.

[Pretty Little Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely innovative and out of the box!

My faves were:
1. Anima
2. Thicker Than Blood
3. The Howling Girl
4. The Cord
5. Heathcliffs I Have Known
6. The Wildflowers (BEST STORY OF THEM ALL!!!!!)
7. Only Joseph (SECOND BEST STORY OF THEM ALL!!!!!)

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, enjoyable collection of stories ranging from 2-5 stars for me.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories inspired by the novel Wuthering Heights, published on the 200th anniversary of Emily Bronte's birth. Like all collections, I enjoyed some stories more than others but, in general, the writing was top notch in all cases.

[Heather W · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of stories, each with their individual charm and I spent a lovely afternoon reading this collection. Loved it

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compilation of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights, which is probably my favourite classic novel. It’s a mixed bag, some breathtaking, others not. Most somewhere in between. I thoroughly enjoyed most of them, especially Sophie Hannah’s contribution

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'Maria thinks how habituated she now is to interpretation, how experienced at watching a face.'(from Terminus by Louise Doughty)

I was in love with Emily Brontë’s book Wuthering Heights when I was in junior high school, mooning about Heathcliff, naturally I had to read this collection of stories inspired by Brontë’s only published novel. Some of the stories had me deeply engaged, especially Terminus. There is something brutal when you lose yourself, when Maria looks at a young woman and thinks “We are each other’s inverse”, it’s such a loud thought, raw. How Maria was once untouched, free of this misery, this cruel love. The heightened state of the abused, the sea that can soothe and destroy (much like love), “The sea is me. Or I am the sea.” Wuthering Heights was quite the story of abusive love itself, one where there was no escape from the affection you should run from.

Thicker Than Blood by Erin Kelly is perfect for the age we live in making me wonder with a sinking sensation just how many people will relate to it. Heath’s unhealthy addiction with Cath, sorting not just through her social media but those in her circle for his fix, while hapless Izzy may as well be filler space until he is with his Cath. Though really, he is always with Cath in time virtually, a lovesick lunatic pinging himself for any news, any photo of her while his devoted Izzy just looks on with longing, put down your phone, please see me? The phone a portal that allows him to never be away from his obsession? What sort of sick, one-sided love is that? The disgust he feels toward Izzy is a live wire, Izzy ‘mouth breathing down his neck”, how dare she want his time, love? This is a modern retelling of Wuthering Heights and it spirals into darkness, obsession that goes into the rotted soil.

How Things Disappear is a gut punch. A young woman is just a ‘sturdy shell, and only the things inside shimmered to nothingness.’ I would think there have been times, if you’re lucky it’s a short stretch, where you feel yourself spilling out, dissolving, dissipating ‘the world took so much of her without permission’, who hasn’t felt that very thing? We are so often ill prepared for what life is going to throw our way, how do we contain the core essence of what it means to be? How do we maintain our soul, and not become just another walking zombie? I think that I felt a bit of Catherine here, doomed to disappear, Heathcliff’s love is the world that took from her. Just something I was thinking.

In Heathcliff Is Not My Name we are in Heathcliff’s mind, “they called you dark-skinned gypsy, dirty Lascar, vagabond, devil. You’ll give them dark, dirt, devil.” This is what made him, this is what led to black nights, the seed of hatred, the birth of poisonous love. Never ‘molleycoddled’ in his entire life not one lick of tenderness, hating those who live in their carefree, happy little worlds like precious pets. He is the dog that gets kicked, if not put down, I think this story was my favorite.

Kit by Juno Dawson didn’t fit but it certainly exposes the ways we humiliate ourselves, build up these ridiculous stories to feed our desires, how we become something other than we are, creating a fictional version, thinking we can push our way into the object of our affections world. It’s a shallow story, and the desperation is painful so it got a reaction out of me. You can’t force it, you just can’t.

The majority of the collection moved me in some way, took me back to the unhealthy, doomed love in Wuthering Heights! If you’re a fan, there are a few stories in here that work magic.

Out Now

HarperCollins

[Sheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to resist a book of stories inspired by Wuthering Heights, especially when it includes the likes of Sophie Hannah, Joanna Cannon and Erin Kelly.

There are some very good stories here, with varying degrees of obvious connection to WH - the most direct modern analogy was probably Erin Kelly's Thicker Than Blood, featuring characters named Cat, Heath and Izzy, and a modern-day version of the plot. (There are lots of variants of "Catherine" in this collection - Cat, Cass, Kitty...) Alison Case's The Cord imagines the actual Heathcliff at the point of leaving. An Arabic translation of the actual book plays a role in Hanan al-Shaykh's story, partly set in Egypt.

The weakest story, in my opinion, was that by Juno Dawson (never a good sign when the narrator - you'll never guess what her name is - opens by telling you how not-like-other-girls she is).

Thankfully, the stories mainly address - sometimes very powerfully - the madness, violence and toxicity of the Catherine/Heathcliff relationship, rather than its supposed romance (don't get me started). There are definitely some unhealthy relationships and some abusive men to be found here. Louisa Young's story skewers once and for all the Heathcliff-as-romantic-hero myth.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...

Two hundred years since the birth of Emily Brontë, sixty-one years since the birth of Kate Bush (the two of them born coincidentally on the same day), the myth of Wuthering Heights is still strong in the popular imagination. Is Heathcliff the Byronic hero or just mad, bad and dangerous to know? This is the question at the heart of this collection of stories. Compiled by Kate Mosse, it features chapters by established writers on the theme of Cathy Earnshaw's famous declaration. What though does that phrase really signify? What does it mean to be Heathcliff?

I Am Heathcliff is a kind of follow-up to Reader, I Married Him, a similar collection which was published around Charlotte's bicentennial. I find it hard to imagine anything similar being put together for Anne next year. While this is unfortunate given her novels were the most subversive of the three, I think this is less a sign of her being under-appreciated (she definitely is) but rather more because it would be difficult to identify an equivalent 'iconic line' from her books on which to pin a collection. To be honest, even with Heathcliff, it feels like a stretch. Reader, I Married Him had stronger thematic unity as an anthology because it was centred around the idea of a woman taking control, of her marrying the man rather than vice versa. With so many interpretations of Cathy's line, I Am Heathcliff feels more disparate.

Predictably, some of the stories are more effective than others. The book opens with Louise Doughty's particularly strong 'Terminus', a woman checks into a seaside hotel, hoping to stay ahead of her abusive husband. When he tracks her down, he says 'I am you. And you are me. We can never be separated Maria, because we are the same person.' The idea of someone getting into your head, of not being able to separate yourself from him - it unnerved me. Then Hanan al-Shaykh's 'My Eye is a Button on Your Dress' packed another real shudder as a woman sought to return to her lover only to discover ... well. Be careful what you wish for.

Sophie Hannah's chapter 'Only Joseph' follows a mother trying to protect her daughter from an obsessive classmate, underlining the fact that a guy creeping after you all day long is about as romantic as persistent skin rash. Then there is 'Anima', in which a child observes a fox. Joanna Cannon's 'One Letter Different' observes sibling bereavement, with Ellis (less than subtle nod to Emily Brontë's pen name) visiting the Yorkshire moors with her foreshortened family. Lisa McInerney charts a destructive love affair with 'Five Sites, Five Stages', leaving the reader reeling as the two lovers crash apart.

But then there were some others which left me more ... unsure. I found the connection in Dorothy Koomson's 'Wildflowers' to be a little tenuous. Even the otherwise breathtaking 'Amulets and Feathers' also felt a creature apart. Then there were other stories which steered a little too close. Erin Kelly's 'Thicker Than Water' brought the Wuthering Heights story into the modern era, something which never really works. Her obsessive 'Heath' sits in his hot tub and stalks 'Cat' on social media, trawling through her various accounts and thinking he should be done within two hours. When she dies, he desecrates her grave and is hauled off by the police, finally triumphant over 'Ed'. While clever enough, it feels far too neat and tidy to ever match the passion of the original. More of a 'Why bother?'

The thing is, I've never really been a fan of Heathcliff, or at least not of the model of romantic hero that he symbolises. The brooding, grumpy narcissist constantly in need of an ego massage. No thank you, it's a swipe left from me. But what is interesting about the choice of title is that while at first glance it seems to be about who Heathcliff really is, the truth is the inverse. It was Cathy who said it. Cathy who claimed to be him. Heathcliff was not even there as a witness, having slunk off in a sulk a few minutes before when he heard of her plans to marry Edgar. He never heard how Cathy felt about him, only that it would degrade her to marry him. This is a missed connection between the characters. Would it have changed things? Or were they just too dysfunctional to ever be happy together?

While I was so-so about Alison Case's spin-off novel Nelly Dean, her chapter 'The Cord' was fantastic. Heathcliff strides away from the house after hearing Cathy's words, furious. He is determined to break the connection between the two of them, to get away from her. She is not Heathcliff. He is and she cannot speak for him. Even more thought-provoking though was Michael Stewart's 'Heathcliff Is Not My Name', which makes the point that before he was Heathcliff, he was someone else. Mr Earnshaw called him after a child who had died but this was not his name.

Still, the best chapter of all? The one that had me punching the air? Without a doubt, Louisa Young's 'Heathcliffs I Have Known'. Her narrator lists the men she has men who have tried to take control, who have hurt, who have raped. The Heathcliffs she has known. And then she rounds on Cathy herself and tells her bluntly that her ghost had better not be running over that moor to return to the man who has done her daughter such wrong. Cathy would be far better to stand up for her child and claw the bastard's eyes out. Unfortunately I am on the record as not having enjoyed Louisa Young's writing in the past but here I was jumping up and down and whooping in agreement. Preach!

Modern phenomena such as Fifty Shades and Twilight indicate that this kind of obsessive love remains strong within the popular imagination. Yet increasingly literary critics purse their lips, saying that the romance between Heathcliff and Cathy only goes to show that Emily Brontë was a mere parson's daughter who never experienced love. Yet what about the parallels between Heathcliff and Rochester? On the other side of the playground, revisionists scowl at Heathcliff and cite #MeToo. What kind of a monster woos his wife by killing her dog? Who declares their love by grave-robbing? Really, who would ever want a love like Heathcliff's? A life like Heathcliff's? But then, if we despise him, why are we still talking about him and men like him? I feel that if we could answer that question, the mystery of human relationships would be an awful lot clearer.

Examining the statement 'I Am Heathcliff' in the twenty-first century leads to some thorny discussions. At its best, I Am Heathcliff examines gender politics and the extremes to which we can be driven by desire. How we can try to write our love story onto another person without consulting them. How we can try to live with love after loss. Wuthering Heights is not a tidy book and this not a tidy short story anthology but the sixteen stories within are nonetheless engaging and thought-provoking. If, like me, you like to Brood about the Brontës, look no further. And let's cross our fingers and toes that the Borough Press think up an anthology for Anne too because she seriously deserves it.

[Sennen Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wuthering Heights is my very favourite book of all time so I was excited to read this but unfortunately it seems that quite a lot of these stories were written by people who seem to hate Wuthering Heights? I particularly disliked Heathcliffs I Have Known. I find analysis of the novel that can be summarised as Heathcliff is abusive actually so infantile and simplistic, it actually makes me a bit angry. And I think it’s quite rude to essentially write a rant about how….bad a novel is in a collection celebrating the author’s 200th birthday, like sorry who do you think you are exactly?
Multiple short stories about abusive relationships aside there were some really nice stories in this collection, I particularly liked A Bird Half-Eaten and Amulets and Feathers. Kit was very nice too, really smart and modern and sad.
To be honest with you I think the Kleypas I read this morning was a better homage to Wuthering Heights than this was.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights. I have a complicated relationship with the book probably due to the crazy love story and weird second generation story, I appreciate it more as I get older. However, you don't need to be a big fan to appreciate these stories. Particularly liked the slightly creepy stories drawing on the gothic elements of the novel.

[Delphine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights . Quite a varied selection, including stories about toxic loves, haunting dead twin sisters, a boxing competition between 2 rivals, lesbian love, intercultural forbidden relationships. No real highlights, no real setbacks.

[Jasmine's · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a Kate Mosse book. A collection of short stories based loosely around heathcliff and Cathy relationship by various authors.
Some of the stories were good but a few had too much crude language in for me. So 50/50

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some okay stories, some good and unfortunatly some really boring "what was that about?" stories.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some gems in here.

[Ireene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes one think about how not to love. I am team Jane Eyre but I really enjoyed this collection of stories.

[Tiana Montgomery · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories by 16 modern fiction writers that are all inspired by Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights'. They each focus on the romance and pain of the famous and popular couple Heathcliff and Cathy. This collection is curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018, and they take on a fresh and modern take of this novel that is as relevant today as it was back then. Writers from around the world have contributed, and each of their take on this classic is interesting and makes the reader look at the book that inspired these stories in a different way. These writers are: Leila Aboulela, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Joanna Cannon, Alison Case, Juno Dawson, Louise Doughty, Sophie Hannah, Anna James, Erin Kelly, Dorothy Koomson, Grace McCleen, Lisa McInerney, Laurie Penny, Nikesh Shukla, Michael Stewart and Louisa Young.

I enjoyed some stories more than others because some were easier to follow and ended well with a proper conclusion when the others did not, and some had a much greater connection to the original source material than others. What I did like about this collection for stories is the modernisation of Healthcliff and Cathy's relationship and how it deals with themes such as gender politics, toxic love, misogyny, obsession, revenge, friendships and relationships. However, I liked very few of the short stories, and most of them I found had tenous links, were boring, or pointless with know real plot or conclusion. I would not recommend reading this book, but I would recommend reading 'Wuthering Heights' if you haven't already, and sure this book is toxic and the relationship it promotes is toxic, but as we all know some relationships are toxic.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terminus: 5/5
Anima: 5/5
Thicker Than Water: 5/5
One Letter Different: 5/5
The Howling Girl: 5/5
Five Sites, Five Stages: 4.5/5
Kit: 4/5
My Eye is a Button on Your Dress: 4/5
The Cord: 5/5
Heathcliffs I Have Known: 3/5. I was all willing to give this a higher rating for deconstructing the idea that 'Heathcliffs' are desirable until - on the penultimate page - it went the well-worn direction of assuming that Emily Bronte didn't know what she was doing when she made Heathcliff an abusive creep. Why is it in a book celebrating the author's 200th anniversary if the author is so dismissive of her work?
Amulet and Feathers: 5/5
How Things Disappear: 5/5
The Wildflowers: 3.5/5
Heathcliff Is Not My Name: 3.5/5. I'm not really sure what to make of this one, since it's really just a retelling of some of the events of the novel (with an added sex scene). It's not bad, it just doesn't really do anything new.
Only Joseph: 4/5

[MiniMouse · Rating 2 out of 5]

This nearly became a DNF but I struggled through to the end, and what a struggle it was. Wuthering Heights is such a passionate tale; this collection seems to have lost the spirit of its inspiration. I suspect there's better WH fanfiction written by amateurs. Disappointing. Standout story for me was "My Eye Is A Button On Your Dress" by Hanan al-Shaykh.

[Karen Keane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of a book challenge, one of the challenges been to read a book of short stories. Some of the stories were ok, the Dorothy Koomson one was a good read, but the majority of them were uninspiring and not at all enjoyable , and as for the theme to be inspired by ‘Wuthering Heights’ a lot of the stories were way off the mark.

[Angie Rhodes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a huge Heathcliff fan,,I was delighted when I saw this on Amazon' to pre order, Short stories, collected by Kate Mosse, written by a variety of authors, and each one completely different, There is something for everyone, and yes, I still love Heathcliff.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times the stories were thought provoking and cleverly written, but I enjoyed some much more than others. The stories least enjoyed were the ones where I felt the themes were forced and put in just to fit in with the Wuthering Heights theme, which spoilt the impact of the overall book for me.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is never easy to review a collection of short stories, especially one by such a diverse selection of authors as this one. It contains stories by well known mystery writers, gentle writers of comfortable fiction and writers only known in translation. It is possible only because these sixteen stories have a strong theme; that of the passionate, puzzling and dramatic novel, Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte’s sole novel has so many points of significance; passionate love, obsession, identities, intergenerational revenge, to name but a few, that each author has many themes to choose from. Kate Mosse’s curation has pulled together some very different stories, powerful, complex, passionate and even baffling. The roll call of authors: including Joanna Cannon, Laurie Penny, Louise Doughty, Dorothy Koomson, Michael Stewart and Sophie Hannah, give a very British flavour. They are complemented by stories by Hanan al-Shaykh and Leila Abouleia, where the longing for a beloved person or the overwhelming desire for revenge takes place in another land, but is no less rooted in the elemental than those picking up on the very countryside in which the original novel was written. Powerful images, strong people and complex emotions combined with thoughtful stories of motives and outcomes to make this a collection of memorable tales to commemorate the bicentenary of Emily’s birth.
Some of these stories stick in the mind and memory more than others. Some are shocking in their simplicity, as a child identifies with the death of a fox, a woman violently demands to see a lover, revenge is key to a young woman’s existence. Some are more complex, as a ghost of a girl must be dealt with in terms of an old relationship, and a school days mystery is seen through the eyes of a determined parent. Some involve disturbing language and even more disturbing ideas, some left me bewildered while others filled in all the gaps. Some of these stories are memorable, others less so. While I found the Sophie Hannah story complex, it is more of the nature of a murder mystery, while “Amulet and Feathers” has a more mystical quality. There is a down to earth intergenerational revenge story, while drugs, alcohol and love are a potent mixture in another. Some end well, others less so. One or two feature children, while another demonstrates how social media can fuel and enable a distressing obsession.
I am not an expert on “Wuthering Heights”, but the strength of the original novel is conveyed by this collection. Devotees and fans of Emily Bronte will not find exact tributes here; they may be disappointed that no story seems to follow the novel in detail. I was grateful to receive a copy of this book; it is a unique collection of ideas and well written stories. As a taster of various authors’ work it is fascinating, as a combination of strong ideas based on a unique novel it is a terrific read.