MR. ROCHESTER

Shoemaker crafts a beautifully written novel of a man, manipulated by his father and tormented by his responsibilities who, after traveling the world, finds love on his doorstep.

“It was a long time before I could think of a governess as anyone other than a presence that must be borne. But for the most part, my brother and I were left alone to entertain ourselves. Rowland was eight years older than I, and as one might imagine, eight years between brothers does not make for a great deal of affinity. I do not recall much of what he did with himself in those days, but as for me, I was content to ramble the rooms and gardens and fields and woods of Thornfield Hall.
Even now, when I think of Thornfield-Hall, I choose to remember what it was then—the playground of my childhood—and not what it was to become: a place of secrets and threats, of angers and fears. If I had been prescient in those days, I might have attempted to destroy it myself.”

A gorgeous, deft literary retelling of Charlotte Bronte's beloved Jane Eyre—through the eyes of the dashing, mysterious Mr. Rochester himself.

Capable of cruelty and tenderness in equal measure, professing his love and denying it in the same breath, Edward Fairfax Rochester is literature's most complex and mercurial romantic hero. He has baffled and beguiled fans of Jane Eyre for generations. Here, at last, is his own extraordinary journey: from a lonely childhood at Thornfield Hall, to a devastating betrayal in Jamaica, to an unhappy marriage with the wild and ravishing Bertha Mason, to the twilight ride when he will meet the plain young governess who will steal his heart.
In the spirit of Jean Rhys's indelible classic Wide Sargasso Sea, Mr. Rochester gives full, satisfying life to a figure who has long captured our imaginations.

Sarah Shoemaker is a former university librarian and currently lives with her husband in northern Michigan.