Spotlight + Giveaway: Mr. Rochester by Sarah Shoemaker

 

Mr. Rochester
Author: Sarah Shoemaker
Genre: Historical Fiction/Classics Retelling
Release Date: May 9, 2017
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Description:

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

"Reader, she married me."
For one hundred seventy years, Edward Fairfax Rochester has stood as one of literature's most romantic, most complex, and most mysterious heroes. Sometimes haughty, sometimes tender-professing his love for Jane Eyre in one breath and denying it in the next-Mr. Rochester has for generations mesmerized, beguiled, and, yes, baffled fans of Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece. But his own story has never been told.

Now, out of Sarah Shoemaker's rich and vibrant imagination, springs Edward: a vulnerable, brilliant, complicated man whom we first meet as a motherless, lonely little boy roaming the corridors and stable yards of Thornfield Hall. 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 Thornfield and all he ever loved. As the determined young Edward begins his journey across England, making friends and enemies along the way, a series of eccentric mentors teach him more than he might have wished about the ways of the men-and women-who will someday be his peers.

But much as he longs to be accepted-and to return to the home where he was born-his father has made clear that Thornfield is reserved for his older brother, Rowland, and that Edward's inheritance lies instead on the warm, languid shores of faraway Jamaica. That island, however, holds secrets of its own, and not long after his arrival, Edward finds himself entangled in morally dubious business dealings and a passionate, whirlwind love affair with the town's ravishing heiress, Antoinetta Bertha Mason.

Eventually, after 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 teach him how to love again.

It is impossible not to watch enthralled as this tender-hearted child grows into the tormented hero Brontë immortalized-and as Jane surprises them both by stealing his heart. MR. ROCHESTER is a great, sweeping, classic coming-of-age story, and a stirring tale of adventure, romance, and deceit. Faithful in every particular to Brontë'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.  

Sarah Shoemaker grew up in a suburb of Chicago and now lives in a little village in northern Michigan. When she was in the third grade, she knew she wanted to be a writer, but it has been a long and circuitous path to get there. She has been a teacher, a wife, a stay-at-home mom, a librarian and, finally, a published writer.
 
MR. ROCHESTER, coming out May 9, 2017, is the story of the strange, sometimes imperious, sometimes playful, man that Jane Eyre falls in love with. Sarah got the idea for the book from her book group. As they discussed JANE EYRE, their discussion, not surprisingly, fell onto Mr. Rochester as they tried to figure out what Jane saw in him. And why, in a recent poll, he was voted literature's "most romantic fictional character." Sarah thought she had an idea, and she challenged herself to write Rochester's story in his own words, so that readers could understand him better. 

http://www.sarahshoemaker.net/ 

(2) Hardcover copies of Mr. Rochester - Open to US/CAN only!

 
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