Excellent collection. ( )

Firstly I don't often read short stories. There were a couple I liked and I preferred those that stuck around the storyline of Jane Eyre not just making use of the Reader, I married him line. 2.5 stars just Ok really. ( )

An intriguing idea that winds up in an uneven collection with few inspiring ties to Jane Eyre:
from Depressing "Grace" to the tense fine tale of "Dangerous Dog."

The one with the best and truest opening was "Double Men,"
though what happened to daughter Nayendi is never solved?

"Robinson" at last offered very welcome Humor!
Still, even for Texas, there was no explanation for why kids would not be wearing
life preservers in a dangerous river current.
With so much drowning foreshadowing, this should have been avoided.

"PARTY GIRL' by Nadifa Mohamed, the author of the Challenge,
stands out for the zippy language, the opening breasts attracting men
and a hijab from her mother,
and the surprise of so easily escaping home to get drunk and do drugs.

Overcoming this, she graduates from Oxford; then she, her mother, and kid all
end up on Depression Pills. Deciding that she is "not dead yet," PARTY GIRL
effects her turnaround with running and the help of gay friend Yusuf.

Thereupon (to return to the more sedate Bronte wording), she falls in love with a stranger at her door.

Not sure how Jane Eyre factors in, but still a fun one! ( )

A mixed bag of stories. A few very good ones, and a few very mediocre ones. I was attracted to the idea of this being several well-known names writing from a Jane Eyre inspiration. There was, in fact, very little of that, and yet three of the four stories I would rate excellent had that obvious Eyre tie.

Grace Poole, Her Testimony - Helen Dunmore - borrows directly from Jane Eyre, and puts a new slant on Jane by giving us Grace Poole's observations of what occurs at Thornfield Hall.

Since First I Saw Your Face - Emma Donoughue - The love affair between Minnie Benson and Ellen Hall is based in fact. Minnie, tied, at the age of 18, in a marriage to a man who eventually became The Archbishop of Canterbury. Minnie said she “fell in love” with one woman after another, and apparently this encounter with Ellen Hall was the beginning of that. Beautifully imagined and written, but without any plot tie to Jane Eyre.

The Mirror - Francine Prose - A very strange little upside down story based on Eyre, in which she is about to be the next crazy woman in the attic.

Dorset Gap - Tracey Chevalier - Lovely little story with a tentative tie to Jane and a cute twist at the end.

The Orphan Exchange - Audrey Niffenegger - Plays on the early part of the Jane Eyre tale…about Helen and the orphanage. In this one, the girls are used as guinea pigs during a war.

Five stories I would have rated either 5-stars or 4-stars, but 16 that I would have rated 3-stars or less; so I have arrived at an overall rating of 3-stars and a recommendation of finding these stories individually and not investing in the entire collection. ( )