Jane Eyre is one of my all time favorite books. I really wasn't sure that I would like this book but was pleasantly surprised. Well done.

Loved this book! What a tale! It is not something that I would normally read, but it just sounded interesting and I like to read books that I think might be a good story. Well worth the read and a fun discussion for book clubs!

This is amazing! It’s so natural to have some doubts when you start reading a modern retelling of one of the most amazing literature masterpieces. This fully deserves its high praises for its bold and unique approach to feminism and for introducing us to one of the memorable literature characters! Jane Eyre is a deeply layered character: her tragic past, raising herself at the orphanage, surviving against challenging life situations, accomplishing to have a brilliant tutoring career, she suffers, her loss, her fights, her defeats, her loneliness.
Reflecting the sad, traumatic, complex layers of the character and recreate her as a modern tv writer who suffers from losses including her house, her relationship, her mother is an extremely hard and compelling job! But I’m so glad to see, the author successfully reflected both vulnerability and resilience of the character with deep honesty.

When I read the description for Mrs Rochester's Ghost I was intrigued. It was described as a modern and twisty retelling of Jane Eyre. I have never read Jane Eyre so I cannot say if that is a true description or not and this version is very Americanised but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found the characters interesting, I loved the setting and I read it pretty quickly.
I would recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my ARC.

What can I say except that Jane Eyre has always been one of my favorites and that I['m always up for a retelling. Marcott has done a good job updating the story to Big Sur and with a tech entrepreneur as Mr. Rochester. It's fun. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Mrs. Rochesters Ghost
By: Lindsay Marcott

I know for sure I was looking for a gothic mystery when I requested this book. I am surprised that I did not DNF. There were several parts where I wanted to. The writing is similar to Taylor Adams of No Exit. Both authors use descriptors that are extremely offputting.

I'll try to give you a few non-spoilery examples:
+This book is filled with designer label drops. Oddly, as were going through the story, the author continues to point out affluent car names. One person is driving a Tesla, someone else is driving an Audi, and I think another main character drives a Highlander. These are not the details I want to remember about your book. Granted, no ones really driving a Mercedes, which is even weirder. These are cars that cost between $50-100K. I think that’s where “luxury” cars begin. What are you telling me about this character that drives a Tesla? This is not a rap song, and the author is not @dojacat. There are no besties in their Tessies killing people.
+There is a scene far into the book. It’s intended to be a high-stress, tense scene. Yet, the author is pointing out that there are jacuzzis in every bathroom of their hideout hotel room and is detailing what types of alcohol are in the mini-fridge.
+ There are several scenes where things are repeated incessantly. Names, one, in particular, are repeatedly spelled out. The name when I first heard it was unique and exotic. Now, if I hear it again, I'll scream. Pronouns are as extinct in the writing as they are Facebook Bios. She can take the place of names. Also, when characters are talking, they don’t normally call out each others names.

These things can really take a reader out of the book, which is what happened to me.

Recommended for readers who like the book's ROOM and NO EXIT. I also recommend to readers who love stories that unfold and where you as the readers have a veiled perspective. IE: unreliable narrator. Because you're not getting all the information here.

That's a no from me..
2 Stars

A great retelling of Jane Eyre with a modern spin and a thrilling mystery.  It missed on a few marks but kept me reading to find out what truly happened.

There is no way to discuss this story without going back and forth on the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë so I will be jumping back and forth.   In this retelling,  Jane (I don't think we ever get a last name) was invited to the estate of Thorn Bluff in California by her old friend Otis Fairfax, who is the current chef at the estate.    Young Sophie was sent to live with her father when her mother died suddenly.  Sophie is doing poorly in school and needs a tutor.  Jane has been a writer on a TV show which was just cancelled and is currently out of work and out of money but she is at least fluent in French so she flies from NYC to CA.  When she arrives, Jane gets drawn into the secrets of Thorn Bluff and especially the mysterious death of Beatrice Rochester, former supermodel.   Her husband, the always busy and usually brooding Evan Rochester, swears that she walked into the sea and disappeared before he could reach her, but not everyone is convinced that Rochester didn't drag her out there and drown her first.

Everyone and I mean everyone lies to Jane in this story; her friend, Rochester, the people she meets in town, and Beatrice's brother, who wants Jane to feed him information from inside the estate.   You have to feel awful for Jane when the closest thing she has to a trustworthy friend is a 13-year-old who keeps acting out.

The plotline of what happened to Beatrice the night she dies was the best part of the story.  We start off that night.  Rochester is waiting to take Beatrice out to dinner for their fourth anniversary when he sees her down below on the beach walking into the post-storm waves.  He runs down to the beach but by the time he gets there she is nowhere to be found.   The story then starts about a year later with Jane's invite to the property.   We also flash to chapters of Beatrice where we see through her eyes as live those final hours that fateful night and we see clearly that Beatrice was Crazy, I mean capital C - Crazy.  Beatrice was bipolar and she stopped taking her meds so the voices kept getting louder and louder in her head.   The voices telling her that her husband was going to kill her to get her out of the way for his new wife.  As I mentioned, Beatrice had lost all reason by this point, but...we also see moments where Rochester is looking at her like he absolutely hates her so she might be crazy but she's not entirely stupid.   So was the opening scene what really happened or what Rochester is simply trying to convince everyone that is what happened?   Hmmm.  We also know that Rochester lies very easily and very convincingly to Jane's face.

Let's jump back to Jane Eyre and remember the Mr. Rochester wasn't really a hero in that novel.  He was selfish and manipulative.   Yes, he was screwed over by this father and brother who set him up to marry a woman who turned out to be crazy and once they were married, he couldn't divorce her.   You kind of felt bad for him, even though he did his best to be a self-centered pig after that.  When Rochester meets Jane, he falls hard for the kindness and innocence as well as the strength in Jane, but then he spends the rest of the story planning and plotting to get Jane to fall in love with him so he can marry her even though he is already married.  He basically would have destroyed everything that was good in Jane, everything he admired, just because he wanted her and wouldn't be denied.   Mr. Rochester is an asshole but he truly loved Jane, so we can kind of forgive him a little bit because he suffers in the end and realizes she had been right to leave him.

Here, the more we learn about Evan Rochester, the more we know that he isn't really a great guy either.  Not only does he have some darkness but his moral compass is quite broken and he will do what he wants to as long as he gets what he wants in the end.   Add that to how he looks at his crazy wife and you start to wonder--did he really have anything to do with her death?

Beatrice's brother is trying to stir up trouble for Rochester but is he so certain that his crazy sister didn't commit suicide or does he simply want his sister's inheritance, especially  if he can get Rochester convicted of murder and bring a wrongful death suit and grab all of Rochester's money as well.  We know that he is a two-bit lawyer and that he and Beatrice have grifting their way through life and he once tells her that she better use her looks to land herself a rich husband soon because there is too much crazy coming out for her to hide it much longer.   Is he a grieving brother or did he have anything to do with her death?

I really had to know what happened to Beatrice Rochester!

The one aspect that fails in this story is the fact that Mr. Rochester (in Jane Eyre) did everything for the love (obsession?) of Jane.   Here, even when Evan and Jane were sleeping together, I really wasn't getting any romantic attachment from him.   We are told about the nightly long walks with the dogs and their discussions but that was too off the page.  I didn't feel any real connection from either Evan or Jane.   Evan wants to keep their sleeping together a secret, even from the other people in the house, but I couldn't figure out what he would gain by sleeping with Jane.   She didn't have any money or connections.  Evan was very focused on business and getting his new company off the ground.  His whole fortune was tied up in this venture and if he failed, he could lose everything.    At one point after they began sleeping together, Evan wants Jane to go home.  Jane accuses him of sleeping with one of his business associates and wants to know if he is trying to get rid of Jane so he get sleep with the other woman.  He gets angry and insulted that she would even accuse him.  Later when he finally confesses to  her all his secrets, he admits that yes, they were sleeping together and yeah, he got rid of Jane because he intended to sleep with the other woman.   Not only did I feel no real connection between Evan and Jane, apparently neither did Evan since he had Jane in his bed but had no problem pushing Jane out the door and jumping into bed with someone else.

The author did a nice job modernizing the story and giving her own twist to the characters and the plot but the developing of what happened to Beatrice on that fateful night and unknotting all of the lies  being told to Jane is what we truly stayed to find out.   Any romance, gothic or otherwise, fell flat.  The only love which developed was between Jane  and the motherless Sophie.

Marcott has brought a lot of the elements of Jane Eyre to this retelling - an orphan who travels to be a teacher for a mysterious man's young daughter, a first meeting between the girl and the man that results in the man being knocked off his trusty ride (here a motorcycle instead of a horse), a mad wife and her brother who tries to make Jane believe Rochester is a terrible man, and a gothic atmosphere with dense fog and ghostly apparitions.
I was kept guessing throughout the book, even though I assumed that I knew what the final answer would be regarding Rochester's guilt. Still, the final reveal was a surprise. And Marcott managed to throw in some things that were red herrings for me, even if she didn't mean them to lead me astray (that's just how my mind started working while reading this book).
I liked Jane - she understood how to relate to Rochester's daughter, she had devoted friends, she was willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, and she wanted to be able to make her own way in the world.

What Didn't Work For Me:
Jane's family has some secrets that have been kept from her for most of her life. But it felt unnecessary to me to have it revealed throughout the book. There was enough going on already.
The chapter's alternate between Jane's story and Beatrice's story of the last day of her life with flashback's to her life. Beatrice's story line seems to be a nod to Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, itself a takeoff from Jane Eyre which tells the story of Rochester's first wife. I liked the idea of paying homage to both books. Unfortunately, Beatrice's story didn't entirely work for me.

I'd give this one 3.5 stars, if I gave stars, a solid read that gave me a good mystery and took me away from real life in just the way I needed.
Rochester was not a good guy on a number of levels and I had a hard time with the ending of the book because of it. He's done some things that I felt like Jane would not have been able to overlook. In the end of Jane Eyre, I'm able to forgive Rochester. Here I had a harder time which made it harder to be happy for Jane.
I'd give this one 3.5 stars, if I gave stars, a solid read that gave me a good mystery and took me away from real life in just the way I needed.

Perhaps I should have read Jane Eyre before attempting this book, but I felt like the new kid at the party where there were too many inside stories that I didn't know about.

Jane has no job, no family and no place to live when a friend offers her place to stay in Big Sur if she will tutor the his daughter. (This already sounds fishy to me!). Jane of course is infatuated with her new employer even though he is suspected of murdering his wife!

Even though I haven't read the original I feel like I have seen the movie or others like it. I just felt like this did not translate to modern times.

Jane Eyre is my most favourite book and the only one that I have ever read twice, so the premise for this story was most intriguing to me. Even if you adore the original, Lindsay has so constructed the story that although it parallels the original in many ways, there are plenty of differences to make it unique. Jane for a start is not quite as naive as her 19th century counterpart even though she falls for Mr Rochester. There are plenty of twists and turns to make the reader sway between "is his wife dead or alive?", if dead then "did he kill her?" along with lots more to keep you on the edge of your seat. I went in with an open mind and really enjoyed the story.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by Lindsay Marcott

Mrs. Rochester's Ghost is a modern retelling of the classic, Jane Eyre. Often, I think modern takes on old classics are hampered by the restraints of the original book and that's the case with this story. The choices that a modern woman has are so much more than they were back in the time of Jane Eyre and I have a hard time thinking that this modern Jane would be so forgiving of this modern, secretive Evan (Edward in the original story).

Jane is a down on her luck, having lost her mother to cancer, her boyfriend to cheating, and her New York TV career to cancellation of the longtime show she's written for, and now she is so broke she has to make some tough decisions. When her flaky friend, Otis, begs her to move to Big Sur to tutor for his wealthy boss's daughter, Jane packs up for this new stage in her life. Once there she finds her promised cottage is really a shack and that her boss is extremely rude and grumpy and Otis has probably told more than a few lies.

Evan's wife's death was ruled suicide even though the body was never found but there are rumors that he was a cruel husband who killed his wife for her money. Evan seems to be having financial problems and his attention is more focused on business than his daughter. Things seem very "off" at Thorn Bluffs, in more ways than one. The nighttime fog and mist seems to bring a ghostly figure to Jane's shack, along with sounds and things that go bump in the night. But never fear, Jane is willing to go running around in the foggy dark, chasing shadows in the night, despite the fact that the property seems gloomy and haunted.

Alternating with Jane's chapters are those of Evan's late wife, Beatrice. Through those chapter we gain some extremely unreliable insight to what might have led up to her death. Poor Beatrice had bats in her belfry and her thoughts resemble a horror movie at best. Even if one or more people may have been out to get her, it's obvious that Beatrice was mentally ill and the situation was made worse by her refusal to take her meds. Beatrice's chapters made it hard for me to have any sympathy for her and she might have been better served if we didn't get her point of view in this story.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for this ARC.

I've read a few Jane Eyre retellings, and Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by far comes the closest to the original material and the one I've enjoyed the most. The setting of Mrs. Rochester's Ghost is a sprawling estate on the foggy Central California coast that surprisingly has a very similar atmosphere to the Yorkshire moors. This book gave me all the gothic, spooky vibes that I loved in Jane Eyre.

This book is marketed as a thriller, but it's a gothic mystery, in my opinion, and like the classic, it has a lot of romance. So if you are looking for a thriller, you might be disappointed. But if you are looking for a modern Jane Eyre or a gothic read that will give you chills, I highly recommend this book.

This is the retelling Jane Eyre fans have been waiting for! Chilling. Gothic. Use of original names and characters. A shady husband. Haunting house. Just everything.

Jane's show has been canceled; her mom died; her boyfriend turned out to be less than worthy. Bank account dwindling- what is Jane going to do?
Her long time friend, Otis, offers her a job as his cousin's daughter's tutor. Evan, yes that Evan - husband of the famous Beatrice McAdams who he either murdered or she committed suicide.
Jane packs it up and heads to California.

Beatrice recounts her last months - chilling tales of her jailor husband, the housekeeper witch who watches over her, the constant medication.

Amazing modern day retelling of this classic.

A Jane Eyre re-telling?! Sign me up please! Those were my first thoughts when I came across this book. Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost is a unique modern re-telling of Jane Erye that is creepy, yet intriguing at the same time. I was captivated from the first page and couldn’t wait to see how this author’s version of the story would play out.

What makes this re-telling truly unique is that we get chapters of the past from Mrs. Rochester’s point of view. I think those were my favorite part of this story. They really made you think and left me wondering if Mrs. Rochester was giving us a true account of her fate or was she truly crazy and brought it upon herself. I personally thought this added a lot to the mystery of the story.

Overall, I thought this book was a really interesting and unique read. I enjoyed getting to know Jane and the mystery surrounding Evan. I have some mixed feelings about Evan and Jane as a couple. I didn’t LOVE them together, but I didn’t HATE them together, either.

Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost is one of those stories that I think will be a hit for some and a miss for others. I’d love to know where you stand on this re-telling…

This is a contemporary gothic retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It’s modern, full of twists, and unreliable characters. You won’t know who’s telling the truth until the end.

Jane gets the short end of the stick; her mom loses her battle with cancer, her boyfriend takes up with another woman, and now the TV network show she writes has been cancelled. How is she going to pay the rent on her New York apartment? When she’s offered the chance to move to a little waterfront bungalow in exchange for tutoring Evan Rochester’s daughter, Sophia, in Big Sur, California, she jumps at the chance. Studly Evan is a widowed tech entrepreneur whose gorgeous wife, Beatrice, drowned suddenly. Jane is suspicious and starts investigating, hoping to find the truth behind the supermodel’s death.

You’ll see lots of the same plot points as the classic. Parallel to the original is (1) a poor naïve orphan who travels to teach a young girl, (2) a man who falls off his ride, (3) lots of foggy weather, ghosts, and a great gothic setting and (4) numerous people who attempt to convince Jane that Rochester is not the kind of person she should be spending time with.

This retelling is done in alternating chapters from Jane and Beatrice’s points of view. I felt frustrated because each, on its own, would have made for a great story. However, putting them together didn’t work for me. I felt it watered down the mystery and the romance. The added chapters from Beatrice’s point of view, I thought, took away from the mystery. Despite Modern Jane being more assertive, I wondered at her allowing a ‘player’ into her life.

The re-located setting worked for me as did the atmospheric tension. It’s always risky modernizing a classic and, unfortunately, this one didn’t work for me. I wonder if I’d have liked it if I hadn’t known it was a retelling? Was I comparing the whole time I was reading? Maybe. Read it yourself. Let me know.

I was gifted this advance copy by Lindsay Marcotte, Thomas & Mercer, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

I've read Jane Eyre hundreds of times. I've also read re-tellings of Jane Eyre.....well, as many as there are, I've read them. This is a good one!

Lindsay Marcott has move Thornfield to the California coast. There is still fog and bluffs and water and a huge estate. This Jane, leaving New York and an overpriced apartment, has recently lost her mother and her career has recently ended. She takes her friend Otis up on an offer to be a tutor to a teen in California. It's just what she needs, a restart.

Of course there's Rochester and money and a maid and a "dead" ex wife.

While I know...and truly love the OG Jane Eyre, this one added some new elements that I really enjoyed. The painting, "Lilies", the rocky coast... everything added a new layer to an already exciting story.

It's hard to re-do a classic. Many do it, and many fail. In fact, earlier this year - another retelling came out and I hated it. That Jane was slutty and just...trouble. This Jane, Marcott's Jane, still has the plucky spirit of Bronte's Jane. She's sweet and a good person. Me, as a reader, wanted to be her friend and wanted her to fall in love.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Big Sur, California - Present Day

Jane has just been left adrift after the cable network show she wrote for is cancelled. With not much savings, mounting bills, and no immediate opportunities, she accepts a summer job in California tutoring a thirteen year old girl to prepare her for the fall semester. Jane's old friend, Otis, is the private chef at Thorn Bluffs, the home of his distant cousin, Evan Rochester, a well-known entrepreneur. Jane is well aware of how Evan is well-known, however, for he was accused of killing his wife, whose body was never found off the coast by his estate. His wife was fashion model Beatrice McAdams.

Upon Jane's arrival at Thorn Bluffs, she is immediately drawn into the turmoil of Evan's life. His daughter, Sophia, whom he barely knows, is resentful, sulky, and in need of some boundaries. Jane's introduction to Evan doesn't leave her with warm fuzzies, but a job is a job. She is set up in a small cabin on the estate, and keeps seeing something outside that quickly disappears when she investigates. Her interview with Evan has her wondering if he did, in fact, kill Beatrice, although he insists that she killed herself. Still, her new boss is extremely attractive and charismatic.

It soon becomes an obsession with Jane to try and understand what happened to Beatrice. There are so many twists and turns to the story, and there is that feeling that she is being watched, especially when she's alone in her cabin. Then there is Sophia who is slowly gaining more confidence in herself, but who desperately wants her father to pay more attention to her. Everyone at the estate seems to be keeping things to themselves, and Jane wonders if Otis and the two old time employees know more than they're admitting.

MRS. ROCHESTER'S GHOST is a cleverly written, modern day take on Jane Eyre. The story is told, in part, by Jane, and every other chapter or so, Beatrice tells her tale. Jane's growing attraction to the mysterious Evan worries her. Can she trust him? Or should she believe Beatrice's brother who is determined to take Evan down? And just what do the employees at Thorn Bluffs know of what happened that fatal night?

Do not miss this terrific thriller. Readers will not want to put this book down until they find the answers.

What a fun story!! This was so unique and a thrill to read. I will most definitely check out more of this author's books down the road.

Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by this new to me author, published by Thomas & Mercer,is a full length, stand-alone novel, written in Jane Eyre style.
Jane is all alone. Not only she lost her job, her mother and her home, she's drowning in debt. So what to do?
She has to start over and accepts a job as tutor for a teenage girl.
Her employer, Evan Rochester, is a secretive man, an entrepreneur, accused of some things.
I started reading and it took me a minute to get into the story, but then oh my, these characters connected with me. The storyline is unique and the writing is great, 4 beautiful stars.

I have to be honest, I struggle with the classics so I was really looking forward to reading this modern re-vamp of the story.

Moved to the coast of California, we meet Jane, a down on her luck writer whose series has been cancelled. With no savings and no prospects a friend calls to offer her a job tutoring the daughter of his employer, a 13 year old called Sophia - accomodation, meals and a salary, what's the catch? Well, the employer, Evan Rochester, had been accused of murdering his wife Beatrice, but the body had never been found - surely it's all just conjecture?

The relationship between Jane and Sophia was well developed and very true to life. I really enjoyed the mystery element as Jane tried to uncover what had happened to Beatrice and the chapters from Beatrice's perspective (which showed her mental state on the day she disappeared) really added to the story.

The only reason I gave this 4 stars is that I didn't find the ending believable. I know it had to remain true to the original but honestly it was a "lust" not a "love" story for me. Evan didn't grow on me as a character - I wanted better for Jane!

Thank you to Netgalley for supplying me with and ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have posted this on both Goodreads and Instagram