Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
I’ve literally just finished reading Jane Steele and I enjoyed it so much that I’m torn between wanting to hug it and shower it with love or burst into tears because it came to an end so swiftly. I loved this story. It was so unexpected and so wonderfully written. It gave me laugh out loud moments, thrills and intrigue and frankly transported me back to my teenage years when I first discovered Jane Eyre. In short, it’s books like this that made me start reading in the first place. In case I’ve left any doubt on the subject, this book was fantastic!
Jane Steele shares a number of experiences similar to those suffered by Jane Eye. Cruel relatives, a harsh school life and a future as a governess to name the most obvious. However, the similarities end there. Jane Steele is a totally different character and, I feel, a quite appropriately named one too. I would first of all say that this is not a retelling of Jane Eyre so if that’s what you’re expecting I want to put the record straight. This is a story that stands firmly on it’s own two feet whilst at the same time paying homage to the classic story.
Ms Steele, who quite unashamedly states ‘Reader, I murdered him’ on the front of the book takes a different turn in life. In an era when women have no real power or standing Jane Steele takes the bit firmly between her teeth and refuses to be defined or restricted by her petticoats. Following an early incident Jane believes her character to be ‘set’ in stone and the realisation of that does, to a degree, give her a certain freedom in the way she behaves. Believing herself beyond redemption she has little else to lose after all. She’s a great character to read. Her story is articulate and flows so easily that I found myself completely transported and before I realised I’d read practically half the book in one sitting.
The other characters who share the book with Jane are all engaging. We have Mr Thornfield, heir and master of Highgate and his strange and yet frankly wonderful household, Sardar Singh, a rather unconventional butler and Sahjara who is currently in the care of Mr Thornfield. Detective Sam Quillfeather, is the policeman trying to connect all the dots surrounding the mysterious murders that have been accruing on his watch.
The story revolves around Jane’s potentially thwarted inheritance and the mystery surrounding her family. On top of that we have an alternative murder mystery that comes into the story once Jane returns to her old family home. In between time we have the years in between spent in Lowan Bridge – the harsh boarding school run by the tyrannical Mr Munt and then a period of time when Jane has to survive, using her wits, on the streets of London.
I have a number of books that are firm favourites and amongst my classic reads Jane Eyre takes a top seat. I love the brooding gothic feel, the secrets (quite literally hidden in the attic) and the tragic Jane whose life seems to be riddled with misery. Jane Steele, whilst not a retelling positively gave me the goosebumps with it’s little snatches of similarity.
I have absolutely no criticisms of this book. None. I’ve searched the attics and the cellars and turned up empty handed. I loved it. It’s a deliciously ridiculous, well written and witty story that doesn’t take itself too seriously and delivers a fast paced slice of entertainment.
A thoroughly compelling read that I fear I cannot do justice to in this review. I think, if you love the classics, Du Maurier, Conan Doyle or the beautiful writing of authors such as Donna Tartt then I think you would really enjoy this book. I shall definitely be checking out more of Lyndsay Faye’s work and I would certainly read more adventures from Jane Steele – I’m looking at you Ms Faye with a hopeful expression!
Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy. I’m so pleased to have read Jane’s story. The above is my own opinion.
‘ere be dragons’
18 March 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Books by Proxy, Jen Williams, The Copper Promise, The Friday Face Off
The Friday Face Off (FFO#2)
‘Here we are again with the Friday Face Off meme being hosted by Books by Proxy . The rules are fairly simple and can be found here. Each week, following a predetermined theme choose a book, compare a couple of the different covers available for that particular book and choose your favourite. Simples. This week the theme is:
‘A cover which features dragons’:
UK : US
The Copper Promise is the first in this fantastic series written by Jen Williams. I actually like both covers and particularly the way the colours share a similar colour theme. That being said I adore the UK covers for this series. They have a wonderful olde worlde feel which is really striking. Plus the three of them together look amazing.
My winner this week is the UK cover.
Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon
We start the book with Deadman’s Hand. This is the first in the Assassin’s series and opens as a stranger rides into the town of Deadwood on a pale horse. His name is Gabriel and he seeks revenge. Doug is the local storekeeper who witnesses Gabriel’s arrival and who will narrate this tale. It seems from this point onward that Doug, in spite of himself, is going to be pulled into the strange world of Gabriel and the man that he seeks. At the same time, on the other side of town another stranger has appeared and following some sort of altercation is now spending time in the mortuary! Strange coincidence? Or has Gabriel been beaten to his quarry?
This is only a short story but nonetheless is an intriguing tale with a small but interesting cast of characters. I don’t want to elaborate too much on the plot because it would be easy to spoil the story for others. What I can say is that Gabriel is no ordinary man. Cursed hundreds of years ago he seeks the man called Temple who killed his family. Temple, likewise is no ordinary man, he is in fact a demon, incredibly difficult to kill with death following swiftly on his heels. The two of these characters share a violent history, one in which they’ve both committed terrible crimes and one which seems destined to be repeated over and over throughout the centuries.
This first story was a very quick read, well written and although only short it manages to convey an impressive sense of menace. We then move to the second story, Pieces of Hate which in fact actually takes a jump back in time and is this time narrated by Gabriel. We now accompany Gabriel on a maritime adventure as he once again seeks out the whereabouts of Temple. This story has a different feel from the first. We travel back in time to see the terrible events that first led Gabriel down this path with the words ‘Feed Your Hate’ drawing him in. We’re about to join the company of pirates and go in search of Captain Henry Morgan who looks set to become the demon Temple’s next victim.
This is a lively and fast paced read. I feel that I should mention that it’s also fairly brutal and bloody, so be warned. Of course both the worlds visited here are places of violence and death and between Gabriel and Temple the body count stacks up.
I’m intrigued about where the author will take this next and I wonder how many instalments this tale will eventually have? We’ve met the characters and seen how their fates become entangled. It looks as though the next instalment will be set in Singapore during WWII and may be poised to give us a little bit more information on Temple which sounds very intriguing to me.
If you fancy a dark tale of vengeance that spans the eras and you’re not afraid of bloodshed then this could be for you. I admit that short stories aren’t usually for me but as this is a series of short stories that are all connected I confess I’ve been drawn into this world and I’m keen to see what comes next.
It’s grim, it’s brutal and it’s most certainly deadly.
I received a copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.
Waiting on Wednesday: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. Every Wednesday we get to highlight a book that we’re really looking forward to. This week I’m highlighting A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses No.2) by Sarah J Maas. So looking forward to this one!
Feyre survived Amarantha’s clutches to return to the Spring Court–but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can’t forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin’s people.
Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms–and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future–and the future of a world cleaved in two.
Due out May 2016.
‘..you make me feel like Spring has sprung…’
15 March 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: The Broke and the Bookish, Top 10 spring books, Top Ten Tuesday
Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
‘Ten Books On My Spring TBR’
As far as I’m aware Spring, that lovely season of awakenings, starts around mid March and concludes with the onset of Summer in mid June. So, this shouldn’t be too complicated (heads over to book diary… wow, lots of good books to look forward to):
- Fellside by M R Carey: Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It’s a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
- Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye: Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And
like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked – but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors.
A fugitive navigating London’s underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding the noose. Until an advertisement catches her eye. Her aunt has died and the new master at Highgate House, Mr Thornfield, seeks a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate’s true heir, Jane takes the position and is soon caught up in the household’s strange spell. When she falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him – body, soul and secrets – and what if he discovers her murderous past? - Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis: The year is 1779, and Carlo Morelli, the most
renowned castrato singer in Europe, has been invited as an honored guest to Eszterháza Palace. With Carlo in Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s carriage, ride a Prussian spy and one of the most notorious alchemists in the Habsburg Empire. Already at Eszterháza is Charlotte von Steinbeck, the very proper sister of Prince Nikolaus’s mistress. Charlotte has retreated to the countryside to mourn her husband’s death. Now, she must overcome the ingrained rules of her society in order to uncover the dangerous secrets lurking within the palace’s golden walls. Music, magic, and blackmail mingle in a plot to assassinate the Habsburg Emperor and Empress–a plot that can only be stopped if Carlo and Charlotte can see through the masks worn by everyone they meet. - The Everything Box by Richard Kadrey: Reminiscent of the edgy, offbeat humor of Chris
Moore and Matt Ruff, the first entry in a whimsical, fast-paced supernatural series from the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim novels-a dark and humorous story involving a doomsday gizmo, a horde of baddies determined to possess its power, and a clever thief who must steal it back . . . again and again
2000 B.C. A beautiful, ambitious angel stands on a mountaintop, surveying the world and its little inhabitants below. He smiles because soon, the last of humanity who survived the great flood will meet its end, too. And he should know. He’s going to play a big part in it. Our angel usually doesn’t get to do field work, and if he does well, he’s certain he’ll be get a big promotion.
And now it’s time . . .
The angel reaches into his pocket for the instrument of humanity’s doom. Must be in the other pocket. Then he frantically begins to pat himself down. Dejected, he realizes he has lost the object. Looking over the Earth at all that could have been, the majestic angel utters a single word. “Crap.”
2015 A thief named Coop-a specialist in purloining magic objects-steals and delivers a small box to the mysterious client who engaged his services. Coop doesn’t know that his latest job could be the end of him-and the rest of the world. Suddenly he finds himself in the company of the Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome enforcement agency that polices the odd and strange. The box isn’t just a supernatural heirloom with quaint powers, they tell him.
It’s a doomsday device. They think. . .
And suddenly, everyone is out to get it. - Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel: World War Z meets The Martian. This inventive
first novel will please devoted fans of sci-fi as well as literary readers hoping a smart thriller will sneak up on them.
17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. A swift and spellbinding tale told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character, this is a unique debut that describes a hunt for truth, power, and giant body parts. - Hex by Thomas Olde Huevelt: The incredible, horrifying thriller from Thomas Olde
Heuveult, the Hugo award-winning author of ‘The Day The World Turned Upside Down’, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Adam Nevill and Stephen King.
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.
The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into a dark nightmare - The Silent Army by James A Moore: The City of Wonders has been saved by nearly
miraculous forces and the Silent Army is risen, ready to defend the Fellein Empire and Empress Nachia at any cost.
The power that was hidden in the Mounds is on the move, seeking a final confrontation with the very entities that kept it locked away since the Cataclysm. Andover Lashk has finally come to accept his destiny and prepares to journey back to Fellein. The Sa’ba Taalor continue their domination over each country and people they encounter, but the final conflict is coming: The Great Wave of the Sa’ba Taalor stands to destroy an empire and the Silent Army prepares to stop them in their tracks.
Caught in the middle is the Fellein Empire and the people who have gathered together on the final battlefield. The faithful and the godless, the soldiers and killers alike all stand or fall as old gods and new bring their war to a world-changing end. Some struggles are eternal. Some conflicts never cease. The Gods of War are here and they are determined to win. - The Fireman by Joe Hill: No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A
terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke. - Smoke by Dan Vyleta: “Smoke is an addictive combination of thriller, fantasy, and
historical novel, with a dash of horror. It’s chilling and complex and amazingly imaginative.’”—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness
England. A century ago, give or take a few years.
An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. An England utterly strange and utterly real.
An elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright. Teachers with mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Three young people who learn everything they’ve been taught is a lie—knowledge that could cost them their lives. A grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories. A love triangle. A desperate chase. Revolutionaries and secret police. Religious fanatics and coldhearted scientists. Murder. A London filled with danger and wonder. A tortured relationship between a mother and a daughter, and a mother and a son. Unexpected villains and unexpected heroes. Cool reason versus passion. Rich versus poor. Right versus wrong, though which is which isn’t clear.
This is the world of Smoke, a narrative tour de force, a tale of Dickensian intricacy and ferocious imaginative power, richly atmospheric and intensely suspenseful. - The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May: The second book in the Falconer trilogy is
packed with surprises and suspense.
Aileana Kameron, the Falconer, disappeared through the portal that she was trying to close forever. Now she wakes up in the fae world, trapped and tortured by the evil Lonnrach. With the help of an unexpected ally, Aileana re-enters the human world, only to find everything irrevocably changed. Edinburgh has been destroyed, and the few human survivors are living in an uneasy truce with the fae, while both worlds are in danger of disappearing altogether. Aileana holds the key to saving both worlds, but in order to do so she must awaken her latent Falconer powers. And the price of doing that might be her life.
Rich with imaginative detail, action, fae lore, and romance, The Vanishing Throne is a thrilling sequel to The Falconer.
Books and travelling with Lynn 