A Brief Book Review: Wuthering Nights

Wuthering Nights: An Erotic Retelling of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and I.J. Miller.

I received a copy of this book after winning it on Goodreads.

Confession: it took me 3 years to read Wuthering Heights. I just couldn’t get into it, and when I finally finished, I still couldn’t get into it. The first thing I’ll say about Wuthering Nights is that it piqued my curiosity in re-reading the original. I was more intrigued by the nature of the relationships that define each character and the ways in which the past continually informs the present.

Wuthering Nights doesn’t stray too far from the original in terms of the story; you’ll still find plenty of moping about the moors, not to worry. What I liked best about this retelling was how well the relationship dynamics translated into erotic, D/s terms. It’s not immediate either; you witness the chain of events that logically lead to each character realizing themselves sexually. Heathcliff’s dominant nature is brought out when he realizes how sex and power are intertwined, and how he can use that to exact his revenge on Catherine and the Linton/Earnshaw clans.

One major complaint I had about the book is that the language gets mixed-up sometimes. The majority of the book shys away from the complex and often hard-to-read language of Emily Bronte, but sometimes it seems like the author tries to incorporate that language, and it really brought me out of the story. It just felt out of place.

Overall, Wuthering Nights is some of the better D/s-centered erotica I’ve read. Examining the hidden D/s dynamics of classic literary characters might become a new hobby of mine…

Has anyone else given this book a go? What did you think?

 

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