A passionate young woman of high courage...

IN THIS SEQUEL TO JANE EYRE, young Janet Rochester is consigned to Highcrest Manor and the guardianship of the strict Colonel Dent

...

Excerpt from Chapter 1: I Am Sent to School

MISS JANET? MISS JANET!"

My maid's calm country voice called me early one morning as I dawdled in the orchard before breakfast. It was a fine April day, the air fresh and cool after a night of rain. There were crocuses, patches of yellow and purple, visible in the grass and daffodils in bloom under the apple trees, and somewhere a robin sang, proclaiming his territory. As I left the orchard, a kestrel flew up, lofting high in the rain-fresh sky: windhovers, the Yorkshire people call them, a name I have always loved. I watched it float overhead, poised, wings still, eyeing the ground for prey.

"Miss Janet?" The call was louder. I picked a daffodil. I held it between thumb and finger and inhaled its fragrance with enjoyment. Its clean, astringent scent filled my senses. Only then did I turn towards the house.

"Yes, Annie. I am here."

My mother wanted me, she said. I was to join the rest of the family in the library. Quickly she straightened my collar and smoothed my hair, braided and looped at the back of my head.

There could be no dawdling if my mother had expressed a wish. I made my way to the library, where my father sat at his desk and my mother stood behind him with one hand on his shoulder. Oliver lounged in a leather armchair. They had been talking eagerly, but now they stopped and looked towards me.

"Come in, Janet," said my father as I lingered on the threshold. It was sometimes difficult for me to intrude on their close-knit group. He sat me down in a chair opposite his desk. His glance at me was sober and assessing.

"We have something to tell you, Janet, of an important nature. We are making a change in our lives." Cool fingers seemed to play about the nape of my neck. I shivered, shrugged my shoulder blades, and held my tongue.

"Your mother and I are leaving shortly for Jamaica," he said. "Within a month. And we will be gone perhaps two years. Oliver will accompany us. It is a scheme that has been long in the planning." He looked at me kindly. "You are too young, we feel, for such a trying journey. You will stay safely in England and go to school. So, Janet, what do you say?"

I felt as if I had been struck a blow. But I stiffened my spine and returned his gaze. "It is a long way off, sir," I said. And again, "It is a long way."

He winced. My father had travelled considerably during the difficult years of his first marriage to Bertha Mason. He believed he travelled in an attempt to leave behind his unhappiness and despair with his marriage. In fact, I believe he would always have had a wandering bent. He was interested in other ways, other lands. Apart from their yearlong European tour, my mother had not travelled, though when she was young she had yearned for "far horizons." She took up the tale. They had decided, she said, that now, while they were both in good health, was a suitable time to make a journey they had long considered. (This was an oblique reference to my father's age; he was twenty years older than my mother.) It was, they explained, their intention to investigate the affairs of the Masons, the family of my father's long-dead first wife, to see how needy they might be after years of upheaval and revolution in the West Indies and, if they felt it advisable, to make recompense for the money that had come to my father on his marriage to Bertha
Mason. (That was my mother's influence, I thought. My father's conscience was well developed, but I doubt if he would, left to himself, have felt guilt over Bertha Mason's dowry. That a husband assumed a wife's property was a fact of life. It would be my mother who felt that every last reminder of that disastrous marriage should be excised.)

I had read in my mother's journal the story behind that ill-fated marriage. My grandfather had arranged for his younger son to marry Bertha Mason, a Creole, living in Jamaica and the daughter of a wealthy sugar planter, although he knew that both her mother and grandmother were of unsound mind, the mother now confined in a lunatic asylum. Through this marriage, my grandfather planned to make his son's fortune without having to divide his own property and thereby lessen what he could leave to his eldest son, Rowland. Bertha Mason's fatal mental inheritance had been disguised before the marriage, her coarse behaviour glossed over. She was handsome, that was enough. (In the Islands, she was widely known to be unchaste and intemperate, indulging in strong drink - the fiery local rum - smuggled in by her servants and given to extreme bursts of temper and even violence to those serving her; local gentlemen of marriageable inclination knew better than to seek her hand despite her wealth.) To Mr. Rochester senior, her dowry was all that mattered. As it turned out, this venal marriage was unnecessary.

My uncle Rowland was unmarried, and when after some years he was thrown from his horse and broke his neck and then, shortly after, my grandfather died, my father inherited Thornfield and all his father's property. He had grown steadily more prosperous over the years.

My mother took over the explanation once more. "As your father says, you, Janet, are to go to school in London. Your father believes you have lived too long in seclusion here with us. The establishment is a finishing school for young ladies, run by my friend Miss Temple, and there you will not only continue to study art and music and to follow a course of reading but also learn to dance and to comport yourself with ease in the social world." The corners of her mouth turned down a little. "I do not imply I wish you to indulge in the more vapid ways of Society, to become vain and self-centred, concerned only with appearance, dress, gossip, and petty snobberies. Your whole upbringing must protect you from such false indulgence. We have tried to instil in you such standards and true moral principles as will preserve you from frivolity. But to be at ease in society is an asset."

Originally published in 1997 as Consequence, Jane Eyre’s Daughter tells, as the title suggests, the tale of Janet Rochester, only daughter of Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. When Janet’s family journeys to the West Indies, Janet is left under the guardianship of Colonel Dent at Highcrest Manor, a place as filled with secrets as Thornfield was for her mother. As Janet navigates young adulthood with only memories of her parents as guides, she captures the attention of the mysterious Roderick Landless and the dashing, if perhaps too sophisticated, Sir Hugo Calendar. Can she trust either of them? What secrets does Colonel Dent hide? Who is Roderick Landless, and why does he seem so familiar?

This charming book owes as much to Austen’s Northanger Abbey as it does to Jane Eyre; strange voices in the night, forbidden wings of dark houses, storms aplenty, and an undercurrent of peril throughout make this a tale which captures the spirit of the Gothic. Even readers unfamiliar with the story of Jane Eyre will not be lost; Newark carefully includes enough detail to engage both fans and newcomers alike. This reader felt welcomed once more into a much-loved story world, filled with deftly-crafted characters. Recommended!


Elizabeth Newark first published this novel in 1999. Now Sourcebooks republishes it with both a beautiful new cover and very nice artwork - not illustrations - in the inside, before each chapter, as well as an appropriately chosen quotation from one of the novels by Charlotte Brontë.

The book opens with Jane Eyre’s daughter recalling a moment of her mother’s life: Jane Rochester (née Eyre) is in church with her two children but, as the Reverend Pimlico-Smythe insists on expounding on the necessity of women bringing ’forth [their] children in pain’, she takes them by the hand and leads them calmly out of the church. This episode acts as a prologue, it introduces us to this new, mother-of-two Jane, whom we left writing her memoirs after her marriage and - to our knowledge - with only one child who looked like his father.

But Jane Rochester has left the spotlight in this new novel, and save for this episode and a few others, it is her daughter, Janet Rochester, who is at the forefront of the narrative. When we meet her, and she tells us her story firsthand, just like her mother did before her, she’s on the cusp of womanhood, takes after both her parents, and is about to go to a finishing school in London. When Janet speaks of her mother, it is quite remotely. She says her mother has always been a distant figure to her, more preoccupied with her brother Oliver than with her daughter. It is this and other small things that make us think that Elizabeth Newark either didn’t like the character of Jane Eyre originally or she has portrayed her erroneously - at least as far as our perception of this heroine goes. But that isn’t of much importance as this is her daughter’s tale.

Despite the title, Jane is, as we say, barely there. The book would have been more appropriately called - and equally marketable - Rochester’s Daughter. For it is Edward Rochester who is closer to his daughter and certainly it is his daughter who truly idolises him, to the point sometimes of nursing a certain degree of Electra complex. We all like Mr Rochester, even if he’s maimed and blinded, but there are things we would rather not hear his daughter say! This middle-aged Agamemnon is now an enthusiast of landscape gardening, which falls in nicely with the fact that he was an avid botanist in Jane Eyre 2006.

Janet struggles to find her role in her tightly knit family and thus - although she goes reluctantly - will derive much benefit from attending a finishing school and developing her true character. It is when she’s free from her parents and brother and - on another level - when Elizabeth Newark lets go ever so slightly of the well-known characters when the narrative gets better. Janet’s story is not without its intrigues and adventures and, though certainly not similar in style to its parent book, these chapters of Jane Eyre’s Daughter make for some quick, entertaining, grabbing reading.

In a similar vein, it is our opinion that the book would have actually benefited from a further detachment from the original novel. Sometimes the amount of characters (or characters related to characters), places, parallels and sentences lifted from the original is a little too overwhelming. And there are also a few nearly subliminal references to other Brontë works. But, as before, it is the episodes which are freer from the influence of Jane Eyre which are, in our humble opinion, best of all.

Jane Eyre’s Daughter can be read from several perspectives. We suppose it’s being sold as a sequel, given the characters and sequence of events, but a large part of it also reads like a retelling. Lovers of Jane Eyre will be able to amuse themselves by tracing parallels with the original novel. But it doesn’t stop there. The book can also be read as fan fiction, of course. Up until now, and with a few - very few - exceptions, Emma Tennant has reigned supreme in the field of Jane Eyre romance-oriented sequels. And both these writers - Emma Tennant and now Elizabeth Newark - have opted for following an almost exclusive romantic approach in their books, with just a few lazy stabs at something a little deeper in their novels. And, less unexpectedly, as a ’sequel’ to Charlotte Brontë’s juvenilia. We are unaware whether Elizabeth Newark had this in mind when she put pen to paper, but many instances of Jane Eyre’s Daughter - some of the characters and their relations to each other, some of the settings, some of the actions, some of the personalities and trains of thought - are highly reminiscent of Brontë’s juvenilia. And this, strange as it sounds, is the most interesting, as well as our favourite, viewpoint to approach the novel.

It all boils down to this: if you like Jane Eyre and don’t need your reads to be all highbrow all the time, if you’re looking for the kind of book which you can read in one sitting accompanied by an endless supply of hot tea, then this is it.

In Elizabeth Newark’s Jane Eyre’s Daughter, the famous parents leave for the West Indies while their daughter Janet attends finishing school. With school behind her and no sign of her parents’ return, Janet and her companion, Laura, move in with her guardian, Colonel Dent. Dent’s an older man whose idea of womanliness does not match Janet’s. While exerting her independence she finds herself falling for Dent’s mysterious secretary, Roderick Landless and fending off the advances of Sir Hugo, tenant of Thornfield.

When I began reading Jane Eyre’s Daughter I had to remind myself that Newark is not a Bronte. In fact, the book is quite different from Jane Eyre and it’s being associated with that work is more of a hindrance than an asset. First, much of the first few chapters could have been cut. Chances are if you are reading this book then you have read Jane Eyre, if not***drop this book and read Jane Eyre at once!***. I didn’t see the need to rehash the lives of Jane and Edward. It was needless backstory. There was a lot of telling and not showing why Janet felt unloved by her mother. Which brings me to how I felt about that: I couldn’t reconcile the Jane Eyre who loved Adele and had such tender feelings towards children with the cold mother portrayed here. It’s Newark’s Jane, I suppose, but she treads on dangerous ground and lovers of Jane are apt to be critical. Speaking of parental relationships... There are plenty of women in love with Mr Rochester, his daughter should not be one of them. Her feelings about him were just creepy and every time it was mentioned I found it intrusive and jarring. Luckily, as the novel progresses this comes up less and less.

Despite a rocky start, this was an enjoyable book to read. I was happy that Newark gave Janet her own personality and not just a Jane Eyre wannabe. Janet’s love of riding and fashion are what I’d expect from a wealthy, educated girl of her time. Her character is also what I’d imagine a girl with such unconventional parents to be. She is an independent and strong protagonist with a good head on her shoulders. The cast of characters was a nice touch. I loved them all, Laura, Annie, Albert, Roderick, even the creepy siblings. The plot is perfect for a Gothic romance: stormy weather, secrets, forbidden love, even though I sometimes felt like my favorite book was being pilfered for plot devices (midnight laughter, collisions on dark lanes). That’s nothing new though. The action and pacing were perfect. I stayed up until 2 am just to finish it. The writing and attention to detail were spot on; in fact, I’d love to see what Newark can do without using famous literary characters in her novel. Jane Eyre’s Daughter is a book that can stand on it’s own as a fun piece of romantic fiction. Nice job!

Recommended

I had *every* intention of rereading Jane Eyre before tackling this literary spin-off, Jane Eyre’s Daughter. I’ve only read Eyre once, and that was way back in the fall of 2001. [You know, the semester that was difficult both personally (grandfather’s death) and nationally (9/11).] And I still *plan* on rereading it if there’s time this fall. It made it to several challenge lists including Carl’s R.I.P. III. But when I got the email from the publisher saying that I should post my review as soon as possible, I decided that it was not the time to go traipsing down memory lane just because I’m a perfectionist.

What can I say about Jane Eyre’s Daughter. The style. One of the reasons I’d hoped to reread the original was so that I could compare the two styles. To see if this one attempted to echo the original in literary style. I can’t be the judge of that (at least not yet.) But I can talk about it all on its own. I found the style to be purposefully put-offish. Let me rephrase that if I can. The narrator has a definite attitude, a definite flair that could be put-offish if you were to meet her in real life. She’s definitely not meek or weak or waiting for Prince Charming. So that’s what I meant, the narrative reflects the narrator. The style seems to be a distancing one. It’s written in first person past tense, and that in and of itself creates distance between the reader and the characters or the reader and the action. As such the action isn’t immediate either. What we’re "reading" is a reflective narrative. We’re being fed a story. Perhaps passively aggressively.

The characters. I liked elements of Janet’s character. Was put off by some other elements. Found the family scenario to be odd if I’m quite honest. Which might be expected. Jane Eyre definitely was surrounded by dysfunction. And Mr. Rochester was definitely one odd guy—with good reason. So perhaps it’s only natural that instead of a normal, loving family we’ve got one that has some flaws.

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This is just a minor spoiler, so maybe you’re brave enough to keep reading. One of the major "ick" factors in this book is Freudian in nature. Janet Rochester seems to be—and conscious of it too—in love with her father. She sees him as the perfect, perfect man. She imagines what it would be like to be in bed with her father, to be held in his arms. In other words, she wishes she was her mother. The man she ultimately falls for in fact is a man who looks to be an exact copy of her dear old dad. So much is this resemblance that she thinks for a good many chapters that he might be her half-brother. Still she loves him anyway. The scenes where she gushes about her father in a very romantic, almost sensual way were very squirmily icky.

End of Minor Spoiler.

Her relationship with her mother. Jane Eyre is shown to be a loving mother...except when it comes to her daughter. She loves her son, adores her son. He’s her constant companion. But Jane Eyre just can’t seem to like her daughter. Can’t seem to love her daughter. As her daughter matures, she senses that she has a would-be rival for her husband’s affections. She’s jealous of any time they spend together. So she’s very uptight and distant (read that *bitchy*) with her daughter, and a bit doting and overprotective of her son. His name is Oliver by the way.

But her parents are really very minor characters. Almost immediately, the whole Rochester family—minus the daughter—is tossed out of the book and sent on an extended round-the-world vacation. They essentially pack up everything, lease Thornfield, and tell their daughter..."we’ll be back in three or four years. Don’t get married until you’re twenty-one." She’s fifteen (maybe sixteen) when they leave. She’s first sent to boarding school. Then sent to live with Colonel Dent after she graduates from finishing school.

The tone of Jane Eyre’s Daughter is sufficiently gothic. There are secrets, lies, mysteries, romance, and a general uncomfortableness that feels appropriate for this Bronte spin-off. The mystery isn’t as spectacularly shocking as the big reveal in Jane Eyre—crazy woman in attic—but the well-intentioned echo (this time in Colonel Dent’s home) is intriguing in its own way.

I won’t go into all the details, but it was a semi-satisfying read. I think it was well written, but for me, I didn’t like some of the places this novel went. I think other readers might enjoy it more. Especially for fans of gothic romance with spooky settings and creepy tones. (Though I must applaud the fact that at least it wasn’t sexually graphic. It could have been much much worse.) It was better than I expected.

Other reviews: Book-a-rama. Bronte blog.


With Jane Austen sequels proliferating, it’s about time someone created a sequel to Austen’s rival Charlotte Brontë! In this sequel to Jane Eyre, young Janet Rochester is consigned to Highcrest Manor and the guardianship of the strict Colonel Dent while her parents journey to the West Indies. As she struggles to make a life for herself guided by their ideals, she is caught up in the mysteries of Highcrest. Why is the East Wing forbidden to her? What lies behind locked gates? And what is the source of the voices she hears in the night? Can she trust the enigmatic Roderick Landless or should she transfer her allegiance to the suave and charming Sir Hugo Calendar? Riding her mare on the Yorkshire moors, holding her own with Colonel Dent, or waltzing at her first ball, Janet is a strong and sympathetic character, and like her mother, she will need all her courage ...

Jane Eyre’s Daughter by Elizabeth Newark: Coming Out in September by SourceBooks

Reviewed by Lady Anne

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when we read a book we love with characters that become friends, we wish to continue the relationship. Thus the frequency of sequels, prequels, and variations on the theme that are books about Jane Austen as well as about, most notably, the Darcys and the imagined lives they led after the close of Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Eyre’s Daughter is an example of this genre. Young Janet Rochester is a somewhat sulky 16 year old, jealous of her father’s love for her mother and afflicted with some Freudian-inspired issues. She fancies herself isolated in her family, and perhaps she was, as she is left behind when her parents and brother go off, first to the West Indies to resolve some problem on the plantation there, and then to visit China and the countries in the South Pacific. She and we are apprised of this venture the day before Janet is sent off to school, where she is comfortable enough, although she raises some question about one of the teacher’s sexual proclivities. A bruising rider, she chases down a runaway horse belonging to another student, and thereby meets the brother and sister who have been the tenants in Thornfield Hall during the family’s absence. When her schooling concludes, she goes to live at the home of Colonel Dent, whom her parents had named as a guardian should they not return from their journey, (she does hire a companion to preserve the proprieties) and encounters several puzzles: a mysterious secretary, inexplicable comings and goings in the night, and questions about the Colonel as well as the tenants of Thornfield. And then she receives word that her parents’ ship was lost at sea.

There is little of Jane and Mr. Rochester in the book; the plot could have stood on its own devices, a somewhat predictable but very pleasant story of an interesting young woman coming into her own. Young Janet Rochester, when she stands up for herself, draws on her memories of her father. But her memories are not particularly familiar to those of us who also have memories of Mr. Rochester. At least she is far more interested in clothes and society than her mother was, and while mildly scholarly in her bent, she is definitely not so high-minded as her mother so famously was.

There is some unnecessary introduction of sexual depravity at the edges of the story; Jane’s companion escaped from her relatives into Jane’s hire because of the uncle’s pawing, and the Thornfield tenants, brother and sister, were incestuously involved, which made her brother’s designs on Janet a most unpleasant development for the sister. But these were not necessary, nor did either advance the plot. Colonel Dent’s rigid, if misguided, sense of propriety and those secrets he kept were far better done, and were great plot movers.

Jane Eyre’s Daughter is a pleasant read , a friendly coze in the mid-to-late- Nineteenth Century. It will not give the avid Jane Eyre fan much in the way of seeing Jane in later life, but young Janet becomes a strong and interesting heroine in her own right.

1. HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

Of writers of classic literature, few are more beloved than Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Their witty, mysterious, proud, and strange characters stay with readers like old friends. Indeed, these two authors have such a devoted following that a whole genre exists of sequels and retellings of their novels. This fall, three new sequels will be available to lovers of period fiction.

Because Austen presents such a narrow view in her novels—she usually focuses the point of view on only one character from a cast of dozens—the possibilities for sequels to her novels are endless. What is life like for Sense and Sensibility’s Eliza, Colonel Brandon’s ward? What kind of adventures does Pride and Prejudice’s Lydia have in Brighton? What happens to the characters after the stories end? These are the questions that a variety of authors seek to answer with the fifteen sequels published by Sourcebooks’ Landmark imprint....

Jane Eyre’s Daughter (978-1-4022-1237-6) tells the story of Janet Rochester, daughter of Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. The story is as gloomy and full of mystery as Bronte’s own tale. Elizabeth Newark’s Janet is never much loved by her mother, who sees her as a rival for her husband’s affection. She looks like a young Jane Eyre, and Jane herself prefers Janet’s brother Oliver, who has the same dark, brooding looks as his father. Janet feels overshadowed by her mother and her parents’ love and her story doesn’t begin, she says, until she is sent to boarding school while her parents and her brother travel to Jamaica.

Provisions are made in case of Jane and Edward’s disappearance or death, and on her eighteenth birthday, having seen nothing of her parents for more than two years, Janet is sent to live with Colonel Dent, their neighbor in Yorkshire. There she meets the temporary tenants of Thornfield Hall; Roderick Landless, who looks very similar to her father; a new friend, Laura; and a host of other characters. Readers, especially those devoted to Mr. Rochester, will enjoy this story of shipwrecks, intrigue, and of course, love.



review: Jane Eyre’s Daughter

Jane Eyre’s Daughter

by Elizabeth Newark

Though it’s been a while since I’ve read Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte’s imaginative writing style came back to me reading this book. It is apparent that the author not only channels the original in style, but also loves nature as the descriptions of wildlife and the changing of the seasons are very detailed and add relevant depth to the protagonist’s personality, who is much like her revered mother.

The very first scene of this novel pulled me in and the suspense continued to build to the very end. I’m very impressed! Unfortunately it is not due out until September 1, 2008, but I will re-post my review at that time as a reminder.

Book Description: “In this sequel to Jane Eyre, young Janet Rochester is consigned to Highcrest Manor, and the guardianship of the strict Colonel Dent while her parents journey to the West Indies. As Janet struggles to make a life for herself guided by the ideals of her parents she finds herself caught up in the mysteries of Highcrest.

Why is the East WIng forbidden to her? What lies behind the locked gates? And what is the source of the voices she hears in the night? Can she trust the enigmatic Roderick Landless, or should she transfer her allegiance to the suave and charming Sir Hugh Calendar?

Whether riding her mare on the Yorkshire moors, holding her own with Colonel Dent, or waltzing at her first ball Janet is strong, sympathetic, and courageous.

After all, she is her mother’s daughter… “