The task of choosing a favourite book is daunting because there are so many books I love and look to for inspiration. But Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is the novel I reach for whenever I feel my prose turning stale and predictable. It is the most haunting story written in the most beautiful language. There are two sentences in this book, which to me sums up the appeal of the novel: “It was a beautiful place – wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret.” Every time I finish reading this book, I feel as though I have visited a magic place that will continue to enchant me no matter how many times I visit, even as it stays wholly mysterious.

Rhys’s novel functions as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I read Jane Eyre many years before Sargasso Sea and even then the “mad woman in the attic” fascinated me. In Sargasso Sea the destructive lunatic in Bronte’s novel is revealed as the beautiful, vulnerable and yes — mentally fragile — Antoinette Cosway, who descends into madness as her relationship with Mr. Rochester disintegrates. It is a book that deals with themes of racial inequality, displacement and the toxic attraction between one man and the woman he desires, even as he is repelled by the very sensuality of her nature, which captivated him in the first place. A stunning read.

Visit Natasha at her website (which has one of the coolest front pages I’ve seen in a long time) or on her Facebook page. I’ve said it before, but if you’re interested in reading supernatural fiction with a grown up edge, a good starting point is Natasha’s Season of the Witch. I’m also looking forward to reading Dark Prayer.