A Breath of Eyre Featured Hot

Since my high school days I have always loved Charlotte Brontë and most especially Jane Eyre; the Gothic romance, the mysterious woman in the attic, the haunted nature of the Yorkshire Moors. When I studied in England I lived in York very close to the moors in the novel. Haunting and mesmerizing are just two words I could use to describe the landscape. It is this same feeling Eve Marie Mont brought to her novel.

Emma must go on her own journey. She has depth. She is torn. I loved how Mont gave her multiple dimensions. She moves flawlessly through two realities, her own world and that of Jane's Yorkshire,England. Monte has classic style storytelling. The reader does not get lost through the changes of time and is allowed to feel the same jarring that Emma feels when she is first torn away into a different world.

The female reader can instantly connect to Emma whether she is 12 or 65; the sense feeling confident yet unsure, too visible yet invisible, safe yet uncertain, and yet a sense of where you are going but not where you came from. The woman who wants to speak her mind yet hides her courage behind locked doors.

I have to admit my love affair with Jane Eyre started to diminish after years of teaching the novel. I would like to thank Eve Marie Monte for allowing me to fall in love with the novel all over again. I recommend this book to readers who have read Jane Eyre (even if you didn’t like it) and those who have yet to discover the magic locked in its pages. Looking forward to her next novel with bated breath.

I really loved this story. I admit I'm a huge Jane Austen fan so when I read the blurb for A Breath of Eyre I knew I had to read it. Mont takes an intriguing premise and breathes fresh air on it. Great writing and pacing keeps the story moving.

Emma is a scholarship student to a very expensive prep school. She's bored and wants something more and when she gets an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre, she falls in love with the story. Later, after she's struck by lightning, she finds herself transported to the story as Jane Eyre. This part of the story was my favorite. But there's something not quite the same with the version that's she living and the story we all know. While at Thornfield she finds that she has choices to make. Choices that can change the outcome of the story.

Gray is her childhood friend that ends up not being what the gossip makes him out to be. Emma isn't sure whether to trust her heart or continue to compare him to Mr. Rochester, who looks an awful lot like her English teacher. One thing I loved about this book is that it doesn't play up the school girl crush on her high school teacher but rather gives Emma choices that are more realistic. Her room-mate Michelle is outspoken but also shows some vulnerabilities that ring true. There's also the mean girl, Elise, who's almost too nasty. I kind of wanted to see a chip in her mean armor that wasn't just that she was a pot head.

Great premise with writing that sweeps you right along. I want more! There's two more books in this series. Next year Emma ends up in the Scarlet letter in the book A Touch of Scarlet. A total must read for fans of Austen and those who love a historical based YA with some paranormal elements.