I first read Jane Eyre when I was about 12 years old. My grandmother had sent my parents home with stacks of old books that had been moldering in her basement. I was intrigued by the hefty, no-frills volume: plain green cover, no illustrations, funky smell. I loved the heroine’s name. I loved the story.

I’ve reread Jane Eyre several times since then. I’ve read other Brontë novels and I’ve read up on the Brontë sisters. I’ve also been fascinated, and usually delighted, with how contemporary authors have reworked Jane’s story.

Mystery writer Joanna Slan wrote a pair of novels that continued Jane’s story after she married Rochester–and took up amateur sleuthing.

In Patricia Park’s reimagining, Jane is a half-Korean half-American orphan living in modern day Flushing, Queens.

In 2016, one of my favorite Jane Eyre-inspired novels was:

Jane Steele is every bit as strong-willed as Jane Eyre (and the former is also aware of the latter), but she is determined to secure an inheritance she believes is rightly hers. Steele doesn’t hesitate to deal decisively with people who’ve wronged her. This is a wonderfully inventive story.

Another very good novel that I read in 2016 that featured a vengeful woman was:

The young Englishwoman Mary Jebb swears to pay back the man she holds responsible for her arrest and subsequent deportation to Australia in the late 1700s. The novel has a great Gothic vibe and some pretty interesting recipes.

Tomorrow: strong entries in long-running mystery series.

Yesterday I revealed my favorite book from 2016, the lyrical, haunting:

Slavery is at the heart of that story, and it takes center stage in two other novels I really liked in 2016.

The first is:

Winters, who’s already made a name for himself as the author of the fine The Last Policeman trilogy, chillingly imagines a United States in which slavery has survived into contemporary times. The “Hard Four” states are determined never to give it up, and the federal government is required to support these states, including assisting with the retrieval of fugitive slaves. Victor, a successful bounty hunter, pursues a runaway called Jackdaw and finds much more than he’d ever imagined. Though Winters wrapped up this story line, it’s clear this has series potential.

The second is:

National Book Award winner, New York Times bestseller, Oprah’s book club–Whitehead’s book has had quite a year. Historical fiction with a wash of steampunk, Whitehead’s underground railroad is an actual train beneath the surface that carries runaways North. Cora, fleeing from a Georgia plantation, makes stops along the way, in locations that seem to offer some version of freedom.

If you can manage, it would be fascinating to read all three of these books one after the other. The horrors of slavery will never leave you.

Tomorrow: two works of historical fiction that feature women and revenge.

I launched this novel reading year in review with recommendations for two books about female artists.

(Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun)

Georgia by Dawn Tripp is a fascinating fictionalization of the life of Georgia O’Keeffe. The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro, with its main character Alizée Benoit, is overtly political. The fictional Benoit shares O’Keeffe’s struggles to be taken seriously as an artist, but Benoit is also consumed with fear and outrage over the fate of Jewish people in Europe during World War II.

Today’s pair of recommendations are novels about the Holocaust. My 5-star rating went to:

Late in the war, twin sisters Pearl and Stasha arrive in Auschwitz where they are subjected to Josef Mengele’s medical experiments. When Pearl disappears, Stasha cannot believe her sister is dead. The story is horrifying and harrowing, yet full of hope.

Very nearly 5 stars is:

Also focusing on children, equally harrowing and horrifying, Shepard’s novel is set in the Warsaw ghetto. Young teen Aron gradually loses his family and ends up in the ghetto’s orphanage, protected by the once-influential Dr. Janusz Korczak.

I liked Konar’s book a bit more because it is a story about sisters. I also admired her deft depictions of Mengele’s brutality–crystal clear without being gratuitously graphic. And Konar managed true, beautiful voices for twins who, despite outward appearances, are so very different.

Stay tuned. The next two novels deal with mothers and daughters.