Just Jennifer

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

As a mid-nineteenth-century orphan, Jane Steele could have steeped right out of a Dickens’ novel or the novel bearing her namesake Jane Eyre.  This sardonic, almost satirical retelling of the Bronte novel features a heroine who not only claws her way out of bad situations, she often murders her way out of them, beginning with her lecherous cousin.  Sent away to a dreary school, Jane leaves the only home she has ever known, the hone she feels is rightfully hers, the home in which her embittered aunt made Jane and her now dead mother unwelcomed.  Out of school, Jane begins to write “last confessions” of executed criminals to support herself until she learns that a Mr. Charles Thornfield is seeking a governess for is seeking a governess for his ward, the two living in the very home Jane believes to be hers.  Getting the job, Janes arrives home to Highgate House and an entirely new household staff, most of whom are Sikhs, including the butler Mr. Sardar Singh who has a mysterious connection with Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor who fought in the Sikh Wars.  Hoping her murderous past doesn’t catch up with her, Jane cannot help herself as she falls in love with the master of the house, but will each of their secrets keep them apart or if each learns the other’s secrets will that doom them or bring them closer together?

Jane Steele is a wholly absorbing novel.  Almost a book within a book at times, Jane often refers to Jane Eyre and readers will easily draw comparisons with the two.  Jane is an irrepressible heroine and is at home in any nineteenth-century dreary orphan novel as she is in this modern day novel.  Oddly, she has a very open and honest way about her, though she is secretive about her murderous ways, and is thoroughly enjoyable, murdering only those truly in need of it.  Mr. Sardar Singh and Mr. Thornfield, dark as their secrets may be are equally enjoyable; young Sahjaran is beguiling and a “Javert-esque” constable is always lurking in the shadows as a threat and a reminder to Jane.  A thoroughly enjoyable novel, parts of which are worth rereading to catch glimpses of so many classic novels.