Jenna Starborn/Sharon Shinn

Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn; science fiction, romance; 381 pages

After seeing the recent Jane Eyre film, I got an itch to re-read the book. When I finished that (and a few other film versions), I found I was still hankering for some more Jane Eyre, so I picked up this novel, which I've been meaning to read for ages (Shinn lives in St. Louis, so I've been trying to familiarize myself with more of her work).

This is an interesting book because it's a (pretty faithful) retelling of Jane Eyre, set hundreds of years in the future, on a distant planet. Jenna is a technician who goes to work on the remote planet of Fieldstar, maintaining the power generators for the prickly Everett Ravenbeck on his estate at Thorrastone Park. An attraction grows between them, but there are mysteries at the manor, and a mysterious presence that seems to haunt the farthest edges of the estate.

I really enjoyed this book, though it's not the fasted read: for this book, at least, Shinn is writing in the style of Charlotte Bronte, so the language doesn't flow as easily as most modern writing. Even though I knew how the story was going to end, I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how Shinn would adapt this or that part of the story: how would Bertha be handled? Or the Rivers family? If Jenna really doesn't have any family, where is her windfall going to come from at the end of the book? There were also little nods to the original book that I found entertaining (my favorite is the addition of "Jane Ayerson"--the tutor for Mr. Ravenbeck's ward--who runs off with a dashing cad halfway through the book).