Black Spring by Alison Croggon

So I'm psychic apparently.

Not long ago I said that Picnic at Hanging Rock was the Australian Wuthering Heights. (I still stand by that statement, FYI). Then last week I picked up a book Black Spring by Alison Croggon, a book that I knew nothing about, other than it was by an Aussie author and had a vaguely interesting premise about a girl born with 'witch eyes' and all the tragic shenanigans that ensue. 

Not my usual thing, but the cover was creepy and cool-looking (check it out - it looks like something out of a Japanese horror movie!)

I started reading and was struck by an incredible sense of familiarity, as if I'd read this before. Then about two chapters in, it struck me - this was the beginning of Wuthering Heights! Sure the world itself was different, with fantasy elements like magic and wizards, but it had exactly the same introduction of a high born twit wandering into a dark gothic tale and being both repulsed and intrigued by everything going on. 

What I didn't find out until later was that the book was a homage to Wuthering Heights. The author outright says so in interviews. Which, I guess is not a bad thing in and of itself. It's out of copyright so it's public property and for better or worse there are a lot of sequels to classics out there, some actually very good.

The problem is that Black Spring isn't one of them.  

Don't get me wrong; there are good points. Like better sequels or re-tellings, Black Spring at least attempts to explore a fresh angle on the original material. Lina is a surprisingly sympathetic reinterpretation of Catherine, suggesting that her self-destructiveness is caused by the smothering oppression of her society rather than an inherently infantile nature. It's even daring enough to hint that her love for the Heathcliffe stand-in was more familial than romantic. 

However, the book is dragged down by being chained to the Wuthering Heights plot, wearily re-treading the same events even when they contradict established character traits or at the expense of potentially far more interesting developments. Take for example the idea of the Vendetta. Croggan goes to a lot of trouble to set this up and hints that it's going to be hugely important but in the end it just sort of... peters out. That Chekhov's gun was loaded and left in the open, and no one picked it up. 

I think if the author had allowed herself a little more freedom, paring down on what she used from the original novel and expanding on the new material she introduced, it could have been quite good. As it is, I can't recommend it. 

I'd advise saving your money and reading Wuthering Heights again.