The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

Summary from Goodreads:
In this smart and enthralling debut in the spirit of The Weird Sisters and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues her eccentric father left behind.

Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. As the last remaining descendant of the Brontë family, she's rumored to have inherited a vital, mysterious portion of the Brontë's literary estate; diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts; a hidden fortune that's never been shown outside of the family.

But Samantha has never seen this rumored estate, and as far as she knows, it doesn't exist. She has no interest in acknowledging what the rest of the world has come to find so irresistible; namely, the sudden and untimely death of her eccentric father, or the cryptic estate he has bequeathed to her.

But everything changes when Samantha enrolls at Oxford University and bits and pieces of her past start mysteriously arriving at her doorstep, beginning with an old novel annotated in her father's handwriting. As more and more bizarre clues arrive, Samantha soon realizes that her father has left her an elaborate scavenger hunt using the world's greatest literature. With the aid of a handsome and elusive Oxford professor, Samantha must plunge into a vast literary mystery and an untold family legacy, one that can only be solved by decoding the clues hidden within the Brontë's own writing.

A fast-paced adventure from start to finish, this vibrant and original novel is a moving exploration of what it means when the greatest truth is, in fact, fiction.

When I was offered a galley of The Madwoman Upstairs, I was immediately intrigued.  A literary mystery about Brontë heirs?  Ooh, yes.  But it didn't turn out that way.  I could not get into the book.  I eventually borrowed the audiobook from the library and sped up the narration so I could at least try and fulfill my agreement to read and review the book.

The most interesting aspect of this book is the bildungsroman, the journey that Samantha takes over her first year of college to more properly understand (and mourn) her father. Her relationship with her dad is the most compelling in the book - and he is dead when the novel opens. I don't buy Samantha's ability to get into Oxford or her relationship with her mother, but Samantha's memory and relationship with her father was the part of the novel that had the most care in development and dimension. The whole Brontë mystery pales in comparison and for that I feel I've been sold a false bill of goods. What happened to my creepy "vast literary mystery" with comps to Special Topics in Calamity Physics? Is the "madwoman" Samantha (because side-eye)?  Anne Brontë? The whole "mystery" had a very soggy (literally), whimpery ending.

Additionally (and this really, really grated on me), the protagonist does not earn her HEA (Happily Ever After in Romancelandia Parlance).  I might get a little spoiler-y here. The relationship with her tutor/professor, one James Timothy Orville III, is very flimsy, built on questionable insta-lust on her side (? who knows bc she's never had much experience with dudes and is socially awkward?) and his attraction to her as a good student on the other (? Maybe?). Except for the tempting and very cheeky idea to quote bits of Jane Eyre from the scene under the tree at the very end of this book, the romance felt unnecessary.

I can't help but feel that if I turned this book over and shook it like a piggy bank those missing pieces of plot I was promised might appear and I'd have the book I wanted to find.

Dear FTC: I received an advance galley of this book from the publisher but then I had to borrow an audiobook to finish reading it.

Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman

Summary from Goodreads:
A groundbreaking biography that places an obsessive, unrequited love at the heart of the writer's life story, transforming her from the tragic figure we have previously known into a smoldering Jane Eyre.

Famed for her beloved novels, Charlotte Brontë has been known as well for her insular, tragic family life. The genius of this biography is that it delves behind this image to reveal a life in which loss and heartache existed alongside rebellion and fierce ambition. Claire Harman seizes on a crucial moment in the 1840s when Charlotte worked at a girls' school in Brussels and fell hopelessly in love with the husband of the school's headmistress. Her torment spawned her first attempts at writing for publication, and the object of her obsession haunts the pages of every one of her novels--he is Rochester in Jane Eyre, Paul Emanuel in Villette. Another unrequited love--for her publisher--paved the way for Charlotte to enter a marriage that ultimately made her happier than she ever imagined. Drawing on correspondence unavailable to previous biographers, Harman establishes Brontë as the heroine of her own story, one as dramatic and triumphant as one of her own novels.

Charlotte Brontë seems to be having a moment right now.  Jane Austen has had the market on fandom for a while but Charlotte's gaining some ground (Re-Jane and Jane Steele are both on Mt. TBR).  And this includes a new biography from Claire Harman.

Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart is a very readable biography of Charlotte that concentrates on her intellectual and emotional life and how her experiences translated (sometimes word-for-word) into her novels.  And she is one interesting lady, no lie. Harman was allowed access to many letters that had only recently been published for the first time which recasts some events in Charlotte's life, including her death. Even as well-versed as I am in Brontë biography, this was a treat to read.  I loved it - and if I Instagram or Litsy (hi, y'all! Have we made Litsy-ing a verb yet?) my annotations you know I am into it.

As a bonus, Harman also included Emily and Anne in the biography since their lives were so closely intertwined with Charlotte's (and Branwell, unfortunately...ugh, that dude should have been dropped in a vat of spiders, what a spoiled brat).

Dear FTC: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher (thank you thank you!)

PS: I haven't read her Jane Austen biography, yet, and now I really want to!

Ironskin

Jane Eliot inhabits a world scarred by a recent war with the fey, the supernatural beings responsible for technological achievements like automobiles and electric-type lighting and for inspiring a certain ethereal beauty not found in the human world.  Yet the fey have also caused great pain with bombs made of curses, of which Jane is a victim.  Jane's curse is concealed and prevented from infecting others by a mask made of iron - she is now an Ironskin, a borderline social pariah.  When Jane loses her teaching position after the war, she answers an advertisement for a governess to a child in a "delicate situation" - a child born during the war. 

At Silver Birch Hall, an old, dilapidated house situated very near a sinister wood, Jane encounters Dorie, a little girl with fey abilities due to a curse placed on her mother, and Dorie's father, Edward Rochart.  Edward is an artist of great talent.  And secrecy - rich women with average faces come to Silver Birch Hall, enter Edward's attic studio, and emerge with beautiful faces to rival that of the fey.  As Jane draws closer to Edward a confrontation with the fey is inevitable.

If you haven't noticed, Ironskin is a book loosely based on the plot of Jane Eyre.  The strange house, an unwanted plain governess, a lonely child, a man with a secret.  I really liked the originality that went into building the fey/steampunk-like world, a great plot concept.  Yet, there was so much Jane Eyre grafted onto the story (right down to some specific dialogue) that it got distracting.  And then it stopped working.  I felt like the author let the reader's knowledge of Jane Eyre color the narrative and do the work of building Jane and Edward's relationship without actually doing the work of building her central characters' relationship within the framework of her own created world.  When Ironskin finally broke away from Jane Eyre plotwise the characters made much less sense.  I didn't have a good sense of them anymore.

The book is obviously meant as a sequel and I am quite interested in reading the next Ironskin book because I wonder what direction it will take in this world Connelly has created.  She made an intriguing SF/Fantasy world and I'd like to see what she can do beyond the Jane Eyre skeleton.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy

Hmm, another Jane Eyre retelling.  But this one is by Margot Livesey, a writer I've heard of but never read.

In The Flight of Gemma Hardy, the setting is updated to 1960s Britain.  Since the death of her widowed father young Gemma, born on Iceland, has been raised by her Scottish maternal uncle, a loving man, and his snobbish, resentful wife. When her uncle dies, her aunt treats her as an unwanted burden.  Gemma is a smart, resourceful child and wins a scholarship to Claypoole, a girls' school she thinks will be her path to University and a better life.  However, at Claypoole, she is treated little better than a scullery maid due to her status as a charity pupil. 

Claypoole slowly goes bankrupt.  Trying to keep her dreams of University alive, Gemma gains the position of nanny on a remote Orkeny Islands estate.  Mr. Hugh Sinclair is a London businessman with a mysterious past.  Gemma and Mr. Sinclair start spending more time with one another and, like her pattern-card, Gemma falls in love with her employer.  There is an interrupted wedding, a trek across England, a revelation, and a trip to Iceland.

A rating somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4. I did like the writing - it's the first Margot Livesey I've read - but it seemed to lock-step with Jane Eyre too much at times. Rather than an homage, using some of the same elements or feelings, it's more like an update to the 1960s. The update was quite good, especially as compared to a previous Jane Eyre retelling (Jane), because it dispenses with the madwoman-in-the-attic/Rochester is already married plot. I didn't quite get what the issue with Sincl...moI very much liked Livesey's writing style, so I will definitely check out her other novels.  At times the novel seemed to lock-step with Jane Eyre - the timeline was very precise so I found myself anticipating certain events.  But the update to the 1960s was quite good, capturing the last gasp of the era of charity pupils treated as servants in a rapidly evolving post-war Britain.  Compared to a previous Jane Eyre retelling (Jane by April Lindner) that I read last year, I have to give Livesey many extra points for deviating from the original narrative at the point of the wedding.  She dispenses with the madwoman-in-the-attic/Rochester-is-already-married-plot - good, because that's the major element that doesn't translate to realistic modern fiction.  I didn't quite understand Sinclair's "secret" but I think it had more to do with the fact that he wasn't very truthful with Gemma or the world in general.  And Gemma, being conditioned to run from that distrust, flees. There are characters who stand-in for the Rivers family but I appreciated how they weren't Gemma's real family.  In another deviation from the original, Gemma is helped to return to Iceland to find the remaining bits of her father's family that still live there. I may have had too high a set of expectations from this novel, but I did like what Livesey did with it in the end.

Jane

After Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte is one of my favorite writers.

Making Jane Eyre one of my favorite books.  Therefore, April Lindner's book Jane caught my eye. 

And then the author's note made me buy it.  She talked about modernizing Jane, making the story relevant by updating the various story elements to work in a modern setting.

Much of the updating works - Rochester is now the rock star Nico Rathburn (the modern equivalent of England's nineteenth-century flush-in-the-pocket landed gentry).  Jane is no longer the unwanted poor cousin but the underappreciated, misunderstood youngest child who just wants to be an artist (as opposed to a society wife or spoiled brat - John Reed needs almost no updating to fit into the 21st century) with almost no funds when her neglectful parents leave her only worthless stocks as her inheritance (the brother gets the house).  The conversion from governess to au pair is almost seamless as is the transition of Blanche Ingram - gold-digging socialite - to celebrity photographer (don't worry - most of the names change to more modern/better versions; she doesn't make anyone sport old-fashioned names like Fitzwilliam - I'm looking at you, Pride and Prejudice updates).  Lindner also gives Jane and Nico a physical relationship - a surprising but, oddly enough, not an unwelcome addition.

However, at a critical junction Lindner keeps a major plot twist from Jane Eyre and I'm going to do bit of spoiling.

So, if you don't want spoiling - for either book - stop now (although, honestly, if you've read Jane Eyre there's really nothing surprising in Jane).

Nico has a crazy wife in the attic.  That he keeps locked up there with an alcoholic caretaker who gets wasted on occasion.  And then the crazy wife is able to escape the attic and do very Bertha Antoinetta Mason Rochester-like things - like tear up Jane's wedding veil and set the house on fire.  AND THEN NO ONE COMMENTS THAT IT WAS TOTALLY ILLEGAL TO KEEP HIS OBVIOUSLY SCHIZOID WIFE IN THE ATTIC AND HE SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR KIDNAPPING AND DEPENDENT ADULT ABUSE.  And then the Jane Eyre plot picks back up and ticks right along (conveniently avoiding the Dickens-like twist making the Rivers family long-lost cousins) to the end.  Thankfully, she avoids "Reader, I married him."

Seriously, WTF??  He is rich as sin and, even if he feels like it's his fault that the wife developed schizophrenia due to drug abuse, he could STILL divorce her and set up a trust to make sure she was well-cared for at a very private clinic, as opposed to an attic with a drunk (at least I think the caretaker had a problem...maybe I'm confused and the crazy lady was slipping the caretaker her drugs to knock her out...ANYWHO it wouldn't happen in a real mental health institution).  Because she is nuts enough to be committed for life by a court order.  This isn't the nineteenth-century where lunatic asylums were terrible, hellish places.  The decision to keep this plot twist pretty much ruined the book for me at this point particularly because the author had made such a point in her essay about modernizing.  If she hadn't said anything I probably wouldn't have minded so much (I would still have noticed, but I probably wouldn't have been so put out).