The World of the Brontës, 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle — reviewed by Stella

What is it about cooler months that make puzzling so appealing? I enjoy all sorts of puzzles, of both the word and number variety, but love the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle with its bonus of a visually compelling end result. So it's ideal to have a birthday in March and to receive a fresh jigsaw in the time for autumnal rains and darker nights. I'm loving The World of the Brontës. Before even finding those sides and corners I had to read the little story of the Brontës and get the lowdown on the family, the many characters, the houses and the pets which are dotted throughout the puzzle to find. Centre stage of this puzzle is the great and terrifying fire at Thornfield Hall depicted by lively swirling flames. There's the moody moor for Catherine's ghost in a colour palette of bruised purples and in a surreal sky of pinks and yellows the world of picture books and fantastical land of Gondal. Having read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall last year (aloud), I was pleased to see the inclusion of the long-suffering, but defiant, Helen Huntingdon with her young son included, even if at her feet are her painting materials cast asunder. And of course, there are the Brontës themselves, Maria and Elizabeth, Charlotte, Bramwell, Emily and Anne. The houses are both the real and the imagined, and the piecing together of these similar looking bricks and stonework is a pleasurable exercise with small clues in the window surrounds, roof structure and tile colours. In other words, not obvious, but neither impossible. The illustrator Eleanor Taylor  has included so many wonderful details from the Brontë sisters' ouvres and cleverly melded these many elements into a cohesive image. Great fun and a compelling distraction.