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  • Jane Steele

  • Written by: Lyndsay Faye
  • Narrated by: Susie Riddell
  • Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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Jane Steele

Written by: Lyndsay Faye
Narrated by: Susie Riddell
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Publisher's Summary

A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer, from the author whose work The New York Times described as "riveting" and The Wall Street Journal called "thrilling".

"Reader, I murdered him."

A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre "last confessions" of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died, and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.

Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents - the fascinating but caustic Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor returned from the Sikh Wars; and the gracious Sikh butler, Mr. Sardar Singh, whose history with Mr. Thornfield appears far deeper and darker than they pretend. As Jane catches ominous glimpses of the pair's violent history and falls in love with the gruffly tragic Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: Can she possess him - body, soul, and secrets - without revealing her own murderous past?

A satirical romance about identity, guilt, goodness, and the nature of lies by a writer who Matthew Pearl calls "superstar-caliber" and whose previous works Gillian Flynn declared "spectacular", Jane Steele is a brilliant and deeply absorbing book inspired by Charlotte Brontë's classic Jane Eyre.

©2016 Lyndsay Faye (P)2016 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

“[Jane Steele’s] crimes are wonderfully entertaining.” (The New York Times Book Review)

"An entertaining riff on Jane Eyre...sheer mayhem meets Victorian propriety." (USA Today)

What listeners say about Jane Steele

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Bloody Marvelous

...sorry, that was a pun. I'm a terrible person. :)

Moving on; this is an EXCELLENT book. When I started it- not having read Jane Eyre- I wasn't sure what to expect, or what to think of it; the book begins darkly with a couple deaths, one that happens around and another that is caused by our protagonist Jane Steele as a child. Moreover, her life then and onwards isn't exactly pleasant: a spiteful aunt at home, a somewhat sadistic and detestable headmaster at school, having to live on the streets in London for years, and so on. Moreover, as the description makes clear, there is murder; plenty of murder. With all this darkness about, about 2 or 3 chapters in I was seriously debating whether or not I wanted to continue.

Well, I did, and I have no regrets. The book is compulsively readable with a plot that never feels slow, characters who feel relatable and likeable- even if they're not always shining examples of morality- settings that become vividly and marvelously real to you as you go along, and a narrator who does a great job of bringing it all to life as you progress.

So yes, this is dark; no, if as Jane states at the beginning you have fairer sensibilities you may not enjoyable; overall though, would I recommend it? Like all of Lyndsay Faye's books, the answer is a positive and resounding yes; listen to this if you have the time :)

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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a bit macabre

This is definitely Jane Eyre with a twist of gothic/macabre. Unusual, yet held my interest

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