#CBR10 Book 56: "My Plain Jane" by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This review will contain spoilers for Jane Eyre, but that book is more than 170 years old, and therefore, if you don't know the gist of the plot already, that's really not my fault.

In this slightly alternate universe, King George III of England was not actually mad, he just saw ghosts and could talk to them (making others believe he wasn't quite right in the head). He founded a society "for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits", led by none other than the Duke of Wellington himself. By the time of William IV, the Society was no longer receiving proper patronage from the king any longer, and they're down to only a few trusted ghost hunters. Alexander Blackwood is Wellington's trusty favourite, and when he's not hunting down ghosts for the RWS, he's trying to avenge his dead father.

While trying to relocate a ghost near Lowood School, Alexander comes into contact with two young ladies. One is the intriguing Jane Eyre, the other her friend Charlotte Brontë (who wishes to become an author, of course). Alexander discovers that Ms Eyre can see ghosts, and while the RWS in the past did not employ women, Wellington is getting desperate, and insists that Alexander recruit her into the Society post haste. Yet Jane Eyre is terrified that the Society will "relocate" her best friend and ghost companion, Helen Burns, so she wants nothing to do with Alexander. She is adamant that she wants to become a governess above all else. Charlotte cannot understand why her friend would give up a life of excitement and adventure, not to mention a very extravagant salary and tries to persuade Alexander to take her in Jane's stead (her brother Bramwell is Alexander's apprentice, after all).

Jane (and Helen) go off to Thornfield Hall (where very strange things are afoot), while Alexander and the two eldest Brontë siblings accompany him, trying to aid in recruiting Jane into the Society. While at Thornfield Hall, Alexander also begins to suspect that Mr. Rochester may in fact have something to with his father's death. While Jane is strangely smitten with her broody new employer (and he with her), and soon (despite ghostly Helen's warnings and misgivings, not to mention very much alive Charlotte's), they are engaged to be married. The dramatic scene in the church, where it is revealed that Mrs Bertha Rochester isn't dead at all, but has been locked in the attic for years, plays out rather differently here.

The final third of the novel, after the disastrous wedding, plays out rather differently than the source material. The true reason for Mr Rochester's strange behaviour and his imprisonment of his wife is revealed, Alexander eventually discovers the true culprit behind his father's murder, the Brontë siblings discover a new and benevolent relative and Jane (and Helen) look to get their own happy ending too.

This is the second book in The Lady Janies series, where Ms Hand, Ashton and Meadows irreverently play with English history and/or literature to create their own thing. I really enjoyed My Lady Jane back in 2016 and was very excited when I heard that their second book would be a Jane Eyre retelling, as I love that book. I fully understand that it is not for everyone and that from a modern perspective, there are a number of very troubling elements to the grandiose and Gothic romance between poor, plain, yet resilient Miss Jane Eyre and her much older and broody employer, Mr Edward Rochester. The age difference, his strange treatment of her, his mind games and his attempts at manipulation are not cool, but the book is, as I pointed out earlier, 171 years old and it was a different time. Besides, it's not like Charlotte Brontë doesn't make Rochester suffer for his early arrogance and attempts at bigamy. He is thoroughly punished, while unassuming, kind and oh so virtuous Jane Eyre is rewarded (after much suffering and nearly dying on the moors). She may start the book poor and without any kindly relations, but at the end of the novel, she has inherited a fortune, discovered long lost cousins and finally, in a position of power, gets to the man of her choosing, when she is suddenly his social superior.

In this book, due to the presence of ghosts (and their ability to possess people), we get a story that seems similar on the surface, but goes somewhere rather different in places. Both Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre get happy romantic endings, with men who are closer to them in age than was often the case in Victorian England. There is danger and intrigue and several dastardly villains along the way, but all comes right in the end. This was a fun enough book, but I think overall, I preferred the first one. I was excited to discover that there will be a third book in the series, out 2020, about Calamity Jane (who I only really know from the Deadwood TV series). With the two books in the series so far, I've been very familiar with both the historical (the Tudor era is my favourite) and literary (see my aforementioned love for the source material) background. With Calamity Jane, I'm more in the dark.

#CBR10Bingo: So shiny

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not sure if the cover model is supposed to be Jane Eyre or Charlotte Brontë (or someone completely different), but while the collar of the blouse/dress may be suitable for a Victorian lady, this girl is wearing way too much makeup (and while her brow game is excellent, it's also anachronistic). Nor do I like the bright yellow or the font used for the title. Not a great cover, guys.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 41: "Jane Steele" by Lyndsay Faye

Page count: 432 pages
Audio book length: 12 hrs 14 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Spoiler warning! There will be some mild plot spoilers for the early sections of Jane Steele in this review. I'm going to try to keep things vague, but it's difficult to write about without revealing some details.

Even if those in today's world who never read Jane Eyre (they exist, I've met several of them), still tend to know the gist of the story (it is after all, 200 years old by now). Poor, down-trodden and plain Jane has an awful childhood, goes to the worst boarding school ever, then becomes a governess in a big, creepy mansion with a strangely attractive, extremely broody gentleman with an interesting way of wooing women and many deep dark secrets lurking in his past. Hijinks ensue. Just in case there are people who DON'T know what the secrets pertain to (my colleague Ingrid is apparently one of these marvellously unspoiled individuals and I can't wait to hear her reaction to reading the book for the first time later this year), I'm not going to spoil it for you here.

You don't need to have read or enjoyed Jane Eyre to enjoy Jane Steele, in fact, I think this is one of those wonderful books that will work on both fans of the original and people who dislike it, because it's heavily influenced by its source material, but does its very own thing with it. On the surface, there are a lot of similarities - a protagonist named Jane, crummy childhoods involving disapproving aunts and inappropriately behaved cousins, a hellish boarding school, the chosen profession of governess, an engaging little girl to teach, and a gentleman with deep dark secrets in his past and areas of the house that are off limits.

There are also a lot of differences. While Jane Eyre strives so desperately to be good and virtuous(and succeeds beyond what is reasonable to expect from a mere human), Jane Steele learns early on that sometimes it's easier to just be bad. As a young girl, she accidentally causes the death of her odious cousin when he tries to sexually assault her. Having already taken a hefty leap onto the road to perdition, she's pretty secure in the knowledge that she's going to hell, and may as well enjoy herself on the way there. She chooses to go to boarding school to avoid awkward questions and learns early on that there are people who can do terrible things to others in the name of trying to teach them to be good. Psychological torture and emotional abuse is just as bad, if not worse, than physical beatings.

Like Ms. Eyre, our Jane makes some true friends while at school and this helps her in London when trying to make ends meet, before she becomes a governess. Having helped rid the world of a number of dastardly souls, she gets word that her aunt has died and there is a new master in her childhood home. She learns that he is seeking a governess for his ward, and applies, reasoning that having killed before, she might have to kill again, this time to secure her birthright. Mr. Charles Thornfield is not what she expected at all, however. A military physician, having spent most of his life in India, his entire house staff are Sikhs and his ward, the horse-obsessed Sahjara, is clearly half Indian as well. The billiards room is now full of magnificent bladed weapons of all kinds and the basements of the house are off limits, with workmen coming and going at all hours.

Jane does her best to learn his secrets (even throwing herself down a flight of stairs when she's about to be discovered eaves-dropping), but the more she discovers about him, and his affection for Sahjara and the warm closeness between him and the Sikhs of his household, who are treated a lot more like family than servants, the more she wavers in her own plans to dispose of him. Of course, even as she grows more infatuated, she cannot tell him of her own murderous and decidedly chequered past, but as outside agents seem to threaten the inhabitants of Highgate House and the safety of the little girl Jane has come to love, she determines that she may once again have to use her talent for murder to remove Mr. Thornfield's enemies once and for all.

I've seen Jane Steele described as a serial killer in several of the publicity stories about this book, and I think those articles are misleading. Yes, she kills more than once, but to describe her as a serial killer suggests that this is something she's doing with forethought and pre-meditation, which is just not the case. The very first time she kills someone, it's in self defence and it's an accident, because she pushes her bad-touching cousin hard to get him away from her, and he falls down a ravine. Not exactly cold-blooded murder. Of course, she lies through her teeth to the police and her aunt afterwards and it's this first death that makes her a lot more likely to turn to extreme violence as a defence mechanism, but she really doesn't stalk the streets like some vigilante ridding the world of abusive evil-doers.

Our in-book heroine is a great admirer of the book Jane Eyre and each chapter starts with a quotation from that book. Jane sees a lot of similarities between herself and her namesake, but she's a lot more timid and proactive than Ms. Eyre. She's fiercely loyal to those she loves and will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect them. She's a skilled and unrepentant liar and rarely regrets her actions, even though some are less than morally upright. It's also clear that in her years in London before she becomes a governess, Jane has had more than one lover and enjoys the physical affections between men and women. It's one of the reasons she suffers so because of her infatuation with Mr. Thornfield, who constantly wears gloves and has sworn off contact with other people as a penance for something in his past.

This book was just so much fun and while the first half especially strongly mirrors the narrative of its source material, it went off in a very different direction once Jane has returned to Highgate House as a governess. I really liked the colourful household and especially the skill with weapons displayed by all its inhabitants. I don't know as much as I probably should about the Anglo-Sikh wars in India, but am going to assume that they were well researched by Lyndsay Faye and that the actions described in Mr. Thornfield and Sardar Singh's pasts were realistic and based in historical fact. Sahjara was a delightful little girl rather than an annoying plot moppet and the slow-burning romance felt deeply satisfying and suitably impossible at times.

I'm not the first to review this book so enthusiastically, and I hopefully won't be the last. This is going to be one of those books I gift to my friends to force them to read it, and I have no doubt it's going to be in my top ten at the end of the year. The Audible version, narrated by Susie Riddell, is excellent. She does such a good job with all of the different accents, including the Indian characters, without ever veering into uncomfortable caricature. With an audio book of this length, it normally takes me longer to get through it, but I actually just sat around at home listening to this one, to get to the end as soon as possible. Really, whether you like Jane Eyre or not, do yourself a favour and check out this book. It really is so much fun, and for the squeamish among you, the murders are not the main focus here.

Judging a book by its cover: As with pretty much everything else about this book, I sort of love the cover. A textured black background that evokes both dark wood and crushed velvet, decorated with a stylised pattern that brings to mind lace or flowers. The various shapes that make up the patterns are bladed weapons, like knives and swords. There are actual anatomical heart shapes, maple leaves, bottles and goblets, as well as some tiny skulls. The pink, purple and red used for the lettering all works nicely too. I would absolutely pick this up in a book store, even if I hadn't heard very complimentary things about it online. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR5 Book 2. "Jane" by April Lindner

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 3 stars

What if Jane Eyre was a young college girl forced to drop out after her parents' death, and take a position as a nanny to make ends meet, and save up enough money to finish her degree? What if Mr. Rochester was a world famous rock star with a tempestuous past working towards a comeback?

Spoiler warning! If you haven't read Jane Eyre, a novel that is more than 160 years old by now, this review will contain some spoilers, and you should probably skip it. However, you should also go find a copy of Jane Eyre and read it, because it's great.

Still here? Ok, then. Jane Moore is an art student at Sarah Lawrence, but can't afford to pay tuition after her parents die, leaving her almost destitute. She takes a position as a nanny at Thornfield Park, taking care of rock legend Nico Rathburn's daughter from an ill-advised and brief relationship with a French starlet.

Nico Rathburn seems demanding, gruff and arrogant at first, but is clearly pleased with Jane's efforts to take care of and nurture his daughter. Working towards the release of his new album and a subsequent world tour, Rathburn isn't even around that much at first. As he spends more time at Thornfield Park, however, Jane can't help but grow closer to him, even as he seems to be wooing the glamorous celebrity photographer Bianca Ingram to be his new wife. And what are all the strange noises coming from the restricted area on the third floor? Why is no one allowed up there? What exactly is Nico hiding from the world?

April Lindner is a professor of English at a University in Philadelphia, and says that Jane Eyre is her favourite novel, that she teaches at any opportunity given to her. So it's not a surprise that this is a very faithful adaptation of the classic novel. While there's not as much time spent dwelling on Jane's absolutely awful childhood, the modern take on Jane still had a pretty rotten upbringing, with self-centred parents more concerned about her older siblings. She's an art student, shy, introverted, plain (not as obsessed with her appearance as the original, God I want to shake that girl for all her whining about how unremarkable-looking she is).

Mr. Rochester has become Nicholas Rathburn, former bad boy rocker with all manner of womanising, alcohol and drug abuse and partying in his past. Now clean and sober, he's launching his comeback album and planning a massive tour with his band. Blanch Ingram is instead a sexy fashion photographer, and the mad wife in the attic is his deeply unstable, schizophrenic first wife who he refuses to have institutionalised.

Lindner clearly knows the novel so well that I'm pretty sure that if I could be bothered to go to the shelf and find my copy of Jane Eyre, I would find that the plot for each chapter is pretty much faithfully recreated, just updated to a modern setting. It's actually very well done, and I won't deny having been engaged by the story and swept along by the drama on occasion. I read the book in two days, so it's not like it was boring or a lot of hard work. I'm just not entirely sure why the adaptation needed to be made. Still, there were no zombies or ninjas or sea monsters or vampires, it's just a very accurate modern take on the novel for a young adult audience (although those faint of heart should know that there are some smexy times, if not very graphic - get ready to clutch your pearls). As someone who's very ready for that fad to be over now, I guess I should be grateful. I will also confess to being curious about the author's next novel, which is a modern take on Wuthering Heights. Maybe she can make me hate that book a bit less by modernising it?

CBR4 Book 87: "Ironskin" by Tina Connolly

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: September 25th, 2012
Date finished: September 30th, 2012

It's been five years since The Great War between the humans and the fey ended,  and the humans are trying to rebuild their society to manage without the magically enhanced technology they previously got in trade with the fey. Jane Elliot lost her brother during the war, and has permanent scarring on her face. Those injured with fey sparks have to wear to control the fey influence overwhelming them and spreading to those around them. In Jane's case, she has to wear an iron mask, or her rage will affect those around her in terrifying ways.

Jane works as a governess to support herself and her younger sister, but never gets to stay long in a position before she is let go with thinly veiled excuses. When she sees a listing for a governess to help with a child born during The Great War, she is certain it's a child who's also fey-cursed, and she's eager to help. The position proves harder than Jane could've imagined. Nearly alone at the large, partially ruined manor with a willful child who refuses to use her hands, and is able to move things with her mind, Jane is close to despair. She is one in a long line of governesses who've been driven to despair by the girl, Dorie, and the girl's widowed father, Mr. Edward Rochart, is an elusive and mostly absentee artist, clearly fond of his daughter, but mostly preoccupied with his work.

Jane is drawn to her employer, even when she knows it's a terrible idea. She's also curious as to the mysterious nature of Mr. Rochart's work. Plain or downright ugly women come to the manor and enter his studio, and leave beautiful as the fey. How is it that the lights in the manor are still run on fey technology? What is the real truth behind Dorie's strange powers and why is her birth shrouded in secrecy? Why does Mr. Rochart visit the woods around the manor, where the fey are known to live? How does he transform the women who come to his studio?

I first read about Ironskin several months ago on The Book Smugglers' blog. A steampunk retelling of Jane Eyre, one of my favourite historical novels? I couldn't wait to get my hands on the book, and my joy was hard to contain when I was granted an ARC through NetGalley. The book is indeed a re-imagining of Jane Eyre, but it's more fey-punk than steampunk and there are elements of other stories in it too. Aspects of Beauty and the Beast and Tam Lin are absolutely present, and anyone expecting a beat for beat fantasy version of the Brontë-novel is going to be disappointed.

This Jane is not an orphan, and actually has valid reasons for being upset about her appearance. If Jane Eyre had had to wear a face mask to cover hideous facial scarring, I would've had more sympathy for her whining about being so plain all the time. Mr. Edward Rochart doesn't have a mad wife in the attic, and the little girl needing a governess is actually his daughter. Unfortunately, while the world building is excellent and the events of the Great War and aftermath are portioned out without any heavy info dumping, the romance side of the book is less well done than I would've liked.

Jane is a great character. As the story is told from her perspective, we get to know her intimately. We know her fears, hopes and dreams and feel deeply for her when she's struggling to get Dorie to behave more like a normal child than one fey-touched. We understand her loneliness, and how distant she feels from the life of balls and high society that her younger sister is part of after an advantageous marriage. Mr. Rochart is clearly an attractive and intriguing man, but unlike Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, they barely spend any time in each other's company. Barring a few scenes together, where it's made clear that Mr. Rochart's past is somehow intertwined with the fey, and that he loves his daughter very much, they barely see each other, and it makes me wonder what she's building her infatuation and later passionate affection on. I'm not a fan of "tell, don't show". The author has to give me reason to believe a romance is actually viable, something Connelly sadly doesn't. Jane just falls in love with her employer because Jane Eyre does. That's not good enough.

Despite this, I really very much enjoyed the novel, and thought it was a very clever re-working of a book I'm very fond of and have studied in depth while doing my degree. As well as being an entertaining reading experience with many clever twists in its own right, Ironskin made me consider new aspects of Jane Eyre and different interpretations of the influences that may have inspired Charlotte Brontë. Best of all, Ironskin is the first book in a series, and I enjoyed the book enough that I will absolutely check out any sequels as well.