“One of the most anticipated YA debuts of 2018, Brightly Burning is a gothic, romantic mystery with hints of Jane Eyre, Marissa Meyer, and Kiera Cass.” –Entertainment Weekly “Brightly Burning delivers a brooding gothic mystery and a swoony romance, all set in space. Donne’s atmospheric, twisty update of a cherished classic will keep you up late into the night!” –Elly Blake, NYT bestselling … night!” –Elly Blake, NYT bestselling author of the Frostblood Saga
Stella Ainsley leaves poverty behind when she quits her engineering job aboard the Stalwart to become a governess on a private ship. On the Rochester, there’s no water ration, more books than one person could devour in a lifetime, and an AI who seems more friend than robot.
But no one warned Stella that the ship seems to be haunted, nor that it may be involved in a conspiracy that could topple the entire interstellar fleet. Surrounded by mysteries, Stella finds her equal in the brooding but kind nineteen-year-old Captain Hugo. When several attempts on his life spark more questions than answers, and the beautiful Bianca Ingram appears at Hugo’s request, his unpredictable behavior causes Stella’s suspicions to mount. Without knowing who to trust, Stella must decide whether to follow her head or her heart.
Alexa Donne’s lush and enthralling reimagining of the classic Jane Eyre, set among the stars, will seduce and beguile you.
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A sci-fi dystopian retelling of Jane Eyre. I loved this book so much, Ms. Donne really put the details into the setting so that we felt like we were on board that dying ship with Stella. I think the only thing I didn’t like was how much shit Karlson was constantly getting – he ended up being a pretty awesome guy and I loved his interactions with Stella. I felt like Fairfax was a bit too self-important and self-involved, I just couldn’t get what Stella saw in him. Otherwise, it’s a great book and I recommend it!
**Video Review incoming on my channel where I plan to talk about all of this in more depth.**
First things first, I HATE Jane Eyre. As a self-professed lover of classic literature from British to French to German, Jane Eyre is the novel I have enjoyed the least. So, it was actually really surprising to me when I enjoyed this sci-fi retelling as much as I did. In fact, I avoided reading this book based on the premise of it being a re-telling of Jane Eyre and I’m glad I finally took the plunge.
The characters were nuanced and complex, all but the villain but I’ll talk about him more later. The world-building was immersive and felt fully-realized. It helped set a more urgent tone and raise the stakes for the relationships and interactions. The writing was solid, good description/action ratio which the original felt out of balance to me. The dialogue felt believable and there wasn’t too much or too little which can weigh down a book and make it hard to read. I really liked the switch from it being his crazy wife to being his crazy mother, it really made us more empathetic towards Hugo and made those relationships more nuanced. Smartly done.
However, the villain seemed written as an afterthought which made Hugo’s poor decisions much harder to forgive or redeem in the end. The end dragged on a little too much. And Hugo and Stella’s relationship left a lot to be desired. Mainly, Hugo did something REALLY bad and as a reader I never really got enough redemption to justify Stella’s continued relationship with him. Or the INCREDIBLE lengths she goes to in order to be with him. Hugo had issues, which I actually really liked. He was mysterious and engaging, not the perfect guy by any means but it did a disservice to his character not to allow him full redemption in the end and left me feeling unsatisfied at the end of the book.
I’m sure I’ll go into all of this more on my youtube review and will link it once it’s live to this review. I really enjoyed this book and hope you do too!
**** Spoilers ****
I really enjoyed this book.
I knew mostly what to expect because I had read Jayne Eyre in preparation as I had never actually read it before. The premise was good, Jane Eyre in space and I loved that. I’ve seen many readers say they wished there had been more “space” involved but I actually didn’t mind this at all, I felt like we had just enough. The story was focusing on the relationships more than the actual mechanics of ship functions. I think were to story started to break for me was actually the ending. It just seemed to be very rushed and I would have liked a more in-depth look at what their initial life was like back on Earth. And then there was Hugo – he just seemed really childish. And though I get that the general idea was that the other governesses had left because of the “haunting” I often wondered if it was more that they had left because of broken hearts or his seemingly lecherous and drunken nature, we were never really given a for sure answer on this. His character just felt very flat and I didn’t find him charming at all. I kept thinking, why not Jon? He really picked up and became a true born leader in the end.
It took me a while to read this book, not because I didn’t like it, because I’m a very moody reader. I seem to go on different genre kicks. When I started this book, I zoomed through it.
Alexa Donne, the author, said Brightly Burning is “Jane Eyre in space.” Admittedly, I have not read Jane Eyre, but I know the general story since one of my sisters loves it. I THINK I’ve seen a movie adaptation of it as well, but I might just be crazy.
Anyway, I digress. This book felt like a cozy sci-fi romance. Stella, the main character, was fun and likable. I liked taking the journey with her and the setting with all these ships orbiting Earth because of an ice age that made the planet uninhabitable. Will they be able to go back? The ships are falling apart. Will everyone survive? Those were some of my early questions, and then we eventually meet the love interest, Hugo, and many more questions ensued.
Since I know the basic story behind Jane Eyre, the central mystery behind Hugo and his ship wasn’t that big of a shock for me. But I still feel like it did what it was supposed to do. And I enjoyed all of the scenes where Stella and Hugo were together.
A good sci-fi romance! If you like YA and sci-fi romance, this one is worth a read. Oh, and if you like Jane Eyre obviously.
Enjoyed the homage to Jane Eyre, well written.