Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by Lindsay Marcott

A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense.

Stolen garments, a mysterious medallion, a red stain on the rug, a deteriorating tower with a slashed portrait, Evan’s beautiful business associate, and Beatrice’s vengeful brother keep Jane guessing about Beatrice and doubting whether she can trust Evan-even after they become lovers.ĭespite its emojis, mojitos, Range Rovers, and Beechcrafts, Marcott’s reworking of this Gothic classic holds its own.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. Despite his rudeness, arrogance, and unwillingness to talk about his wife, who supposedly drowned herself in the surf on their wedding anniversary, Jane can’t help falling for him. She’s almost ready to quit when Evan and a motorcycle emerge from the mist. Jane has always had a taste for the macabre, but even she’s unsettled on her first night, when she thinks she sees a ghost. The estate is isolated Jane’s cottage, though it’s rent-free, is bleak and the absent owner, Evan Rochester, is rumored to have murdered his wife, the lovely but mentally unstable Beatrice. Almost at once she thinks she’s made a mistake in letting her friend Otis Fairfax, Thorn Bluffs’ chef, talk her into coming there to tutor a motherless teenage girl. When Jane arrives at Thorn Bluffs, a former artists colony on the very edge of Big Sur, she’s leaving behind a failed career as a scriptwriter, a romantic betrayal, and her mother’s recent death. A modern American Jane Eyre won’t rest until she learns the fate of her employer’s wife.

Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by Lindsay Marcott