‘Still so relatable’: how teenage discovery of the Brontës fostered career in literature

Lucy Powrie, 25, near her home in Chippenham. She started blogging about books aged 12 and by 13 had her own YouTube channel. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

Lucy Powrie was 15 years old when she first read Anne Brontë’s 1847 novel Agnes Grey and instantly, intensely, fell in love. “There was just this moment of, I suppose, feeling like I’d come home. I’d found something that was just better than anything I had ever found in my life.”

Already a wildly enthusiastic reader, she had been blogging about books since the age of 12, and hosting a book review channel on YouTube since she was 13. Discovering Anne Brontë, followed immediately by her older sisters Emily and Charlotte, opened the door to a new world: “They were everything that I didn’t realise was out there.”