Jane Slayre
Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin

Jane Slayre, our plucky demon-slaying heroine, a courageous orphan who spurns the detestable vampyre kin who raised her, sets out on the advice of her ghostly uncle to hone her skills as the fearless slayer she's meant to be. When she takes a job as a governess at a country estate, she falls head-over-heels for her new master, Mr. Rochester, only to discover he's hiding a violent werewolf in the attic - in the form of his first wife. Can a menagerie of bloodthirsty, flesh-eating, savage creatures-of-the-night keep a swashbuckling nineteenth-century lady from the gentleman she intends to marry? Vampyres, zombies, and werewolves transform Charlotte Bronte's unforgettable masterpiece into an eerie paranormal adventure that will delight and terrify.

As most of you know by now, I'm a fan of a good mashup book. And this, most definitely, is a good mash up book.

The supernatural aspects of the story seem to fit right in with the original work almost seamlessly. And if this re-telling gets people to read this book who would not normally have read the original, then it is also doing a service to literature.

This story moved well, remained interesting, and was able to keep the heroine likeable without changing her too much from the original. Even with the mashup bits, the book was smooth flowing and easy to read.

The only negative, and this is why I take one snail away, is the editing. Many times a word that should not be there was there to throw the reader off, including calling Jayne Miss. Slayre when she had given someone an alternate name and there is no way this character could have known her true name. Either the author or the editor should have caught many of these mistakes and there are enough in the novel to pull the reader out of the world for a moment.

Other than that, I quite enjoyed it and would recommend it to both those who have read Jane Eyre and those who have not.

My rating: Four out of five snails.