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Mr. Rochester

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
"A CRACKING-GOOD READ!"— People, Best New Books
A deft and irresistible retelling of Charlotte Bronte´s beloved classic Jane Eyre—from the point of view of the dashing, mysterious Mr. Rochester himself.
For 170 years, Edward Fairfax Rochester has stood as one of literature's most complex and captivating romantic heroes. Sometimes cruel, sometimes tender, Jane Eyre's mercurial master at Thornfield Hall has mesmerized, beguiled, and, yes, baffled fans of Charlotte Brontv´'s masterpiece for generations. But his own story has never been told.
We first meet this brilliant, tormented hero as a motherless boy roaming Thornfield's lonely corridors. On the morning of Edward's eighth birthday, his father issues a decree: He is to be sent away to get an education, exiled from all he ever loved. Young Edward's journey will take him across working-class England and the decadence of continental Europe before he lands on the warm, languid shores of faraway Jamaica, where his inheritance lies.
That island, however, holds secrets of its own, and Edward soon grows entangled in morally dubious business dealings and a passionate, whirlwind love affair with the town's ravishing heiress, Bertha Antoinetta Mason. Eventually, in the wake of a devastating betrayal, Edward must return to England with his increasingly unstable wife to take over as master of Thornfield. And it is there, on a twilight ride, that he meets the stubborn, plain young governess who will steal his heart and teach him how to love again.
Mr. Rochester is a sweeping coming-of-age story and a stirring tale of adventure, romance, and deceit. Faithful in every particular to Brontv´'s original yet full of unexpected twists and riveting behind-the-scenes drama, this novel will completely, deliciously, and forever change how we read and remember Jane Eyre.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 20, 2017
      In this work of historical fiction, Shoemaker depicts the private life of Mr. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Who exactly is the mysterious Mr. Rochester, and how exactly did he become entangled in that hellish marriage with Bertha Antoinetta Mason? Shoemaker delves into the as yet untold past of Edward Fairfax Rochester, bringing to light the events that led him to Thornfield Hall and his beloved Jane. Readers begin their acquaintance with Mr. Rochester on his eighth birthday as he is sent off to his first days of school at Black Hill under Mr. Hiram Lincoln. Sadness imbues Edward’s life—shaped by the early loss of his mother and the constant manipulation, neglect, and bullying of his father and older brother, Rowland. As the pieces of his life come together, readers watch Edward make his way toward an unavoidable future set out for him by Brontë. He meets pivotal mentors who teach him the rules of the world he is meant to enter, eventually following his inheritance to the shores of Jamaica, where things quickly become more complicated than he is prepared for. Shoemaker’s detailed writing will transport readers to a bygone age of romance and heartbreak. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

    • Kirkus

      March 1, 2017
      Puzzling over Rochester, the brooding romantic antihero created by Charlotte Bronte in her classic Jane Eyre, a debut novelist elaborates his back story and adds some new, explanatory developments to the tale.Edward Fairfax Rochester meets Jane Eyre two-thirds of the way through Shoemaker's sizable, solid first work of fiction, which means that most of her book is devoted to his earlier life and character formation, while the closing third retells the familiar narrative, this time delivered from his, not her, first-person perspective. It's at that switchover point that "gruffness," brusqueness, growling, and "foul mood[s]" begin to characterize the man who, previously, had seemed not so much angry as a wounded introvert. Shoemaker evokes Rochester's comfortless childhood that leaves the boy "yearning for the larger shows of love" denied by his widowed father and callous elder brother, Rowland. Pining for a real home and family, he must make do with an eccentric private school and two friends, nicknamed Carrot and Touch, a learning-the-ropes job at a woolen mill under the not-unkind care of Mr. Wilson, and four lonely years at Cambridge University before setting off for Jamaica to make his fortune and fall into the engineered trap of marriage to mad Bertha Mason. As the years pass, Shoemaker disposes of Carrot, Touch, and Wilson, as well as Rowland and others, intensifying Rochester's isolation at Thornfield-Hall, with Bertha raving in the attic. And then Jane arrives. While these facts conform largely to Bronte's romance--there's one significant departure--the character of Rochester doesn't quite. This figure, who is submissive and unchallenging as a child and young man, lacks the saturnine charisma of the original. Also absent are the physical presence and the dangerous, irresistible dynamism of Bronte's Byronic icon. Reader, this lily needed no gilding.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      April 15, 2017
      Shoemaker gives Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester a book of his own. There are hints of Jane's early life in his; both are lonely children, although their circumstances are much different. Rochester loses his mother early and, as a second son, follows a path laid out for him by his autocratic and largely absent father, from private tutoring to an apprenticeship at a counting house to college at Cambridge and then, at age 18, to Jamaica. Then come his disastrous marriage; his return to England, mad wife in tow, when he inherits Thornfield; and his dissipations in Paris, until, finally, Jane comes into his life. Readers will not find the brooding and tortured Rochester who is such a force in Jane Eyre; in these pages, he is a bit of a dull dog. It's interesting to see, nevertheless, how Shoemaker constructs a biography from the information provided in Bronte's novel and also to see the events familiar from that novel through his point of view. Recommend this to anyone eager for another take on Jane Eyre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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