Blood Moon at Eyre Hall (The Eyre Hall Series, #1) by Luccia Gray

Blood Moon at Eyre Hall (The Eyre Hall Series, #1) Reviews

• 
  Space Cowgirl

  Where Did Our Love Go?🎶🎶
  Looking back in sadness💔.
  ADULT Victorian Romance💕 and Mystery based on the Charlotte Bronte novel "Jane Eyre" written in 1849.
  This novel takes place years later in 1865, after the orphan Jane Eyre💃💋 has been married to the rake, Mr Edward Rochester🐺 for 20 years and they have an Adult son, John. Jane is his second wife, and was once the governess to Edward's illegitimate daughter, Adele. Mr Rochester is very ill and near to dying, but he is determined, and dominant to the very end.
  
  He requests his solicitor attend him. Apparently he has some confessions to make about some people he has wronged! He also asks Jane💃💋💔 to forgive him for all his sins, not naming some she shouldn't and will never know about.
  
  Mr Briggs arrives to draft Rochester 's🐺 last will and testament. Witnesses are servants Susan and Michael, sister and brother. Rochester🐺 makes Michael🐺 promise to take care of Jane💃💔, and help her with the job of running their large estate and tenants. Rochester🐺 has no faith in John's ability or interest in the estate, and leaves everything to Jane💃💔.
  
  Jane stopped loving💔 him years ago, after their daughter died and he betrayed her trust with numerous lies over the years. She knows at her age she will never find love💕 again...
  
  ARC Provided by Book 📚 Sirens💃
  This ebook was $2.99 on Amazon 📚at the time of this review.
  Opinions expressed here are entirely my own fault!
  
  I confess! I have never read Jane Eyre, but possibly saw a movie or a BBC series about it! EGADS! This novel is a Great story, and very honest and introspective about both Edward Rochester's🐺 and Jane's lives together. The book is told from multiple points of view by Jane💃💋💔 and other characters who were affected by the deeds and exploits of the rake, Edward Rochester🐺.
  
  I can identify with Jane Eyre💃💔, a woman who looks back into the past and wonders, what if she had done things differently, married👰 a different man? Lived a different life?
  
  This is the first book in what is a planned series 📚 about the dubious legacy of Jane Eyre💃💋💔 and Edward Rochester🐺. Much of it seems like kind of a confession or a reckoning.
  
  The book ends in a cliffhanger, which I really dislike, as it forces readers to buy additional books. Loss of a 🌟star for the cliffhanger.
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  Sophie

  I read the original Jane Eyre and I loved the main character Jane. When I found this story I was intrigued by the idea of what happened after the happily ever after for the beloved couple. I really liked this story. I think Luccia is a great storyteller who bring Jane and her husband back to life. I liked the atmosphere of the story. A dying man and a questioning woman makes for a great storyline.
  I received this as an arc from Booksprout and freely left this review.
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  Barbara

  Book One in The Eyre Hall Series a story done in four parts, I liked the chapter names. This is a telling of Jane Eyre and everything she has to go through. It does carry over to the next book., which I want to read. I received a copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
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  Delphia Von Heeder

  Blood Moon at Eyre Hall is Book 1 of the Eyre Hall Series by Luccia Gray. While Edward and Jane Rochester are talking on the grounds of Eyre Hall Edward has a stroke. Edward faces impending death head on. There are secrets Edward does not want Jane to know. Jane is a second wife. He kept his first wife in an attic. Edward has an illegitimate daughter. So many secrets. I received an arc for free and am leaving my review voluntarily.
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  Lori Sinsel Harris

  I read Jane Eyre years and years ago when I was in high school and loved it. At the time I was really into the gothic mystery, gothic romance novels, so Jane fit the bill. I only recently started reading gothic themed books again after years of other interests. Luccia Gray's "Blood Moon at Eyre Hall" fits seamlessly with Charlotte Bronte's original "Jane Eyre".
  
  It was a joy to be reintroduced to familiar characters from years ago and to meet new ones that fit right into the storyline as if they had always been there.
  
  Gray's style of writing and character development is astounding in the way it binds so well with Bronte's Jane. I felt as if I was reading a continuation of the original, telling of Jane's life after 20 years of marriage to the cad Edward Rochester.
  
  Rochester is aging and very ill, after having suffered a few strokes. He is bed bound but still seeking to control those around him. Making Jane his heir when he writes his final will, he leaves instructions to discontinue payments to several places that have been made for years, but that Jane is unaware of the reasons for such payments. Doing this Edward stirs up a pot of trouble in his last days.
  
  Suddenly Jane is burdened with an unknown to her, daughter from Edward's first marriage and her uncle, his former brother-in-law, who has underhanded plans for Jane.
  
  Everyone is invited to one last dinner at Eyre Hall on All Hallows Eve to pay their respects to Edward in his final days, what will Jane be left to face on her own after Edward's death?
  
  This book ends with a lot of unresolved issues making me anxious to read the next installment and find out what devious going ons occur. I really like the character of Jane, I always have, Edward, he is the type you love to hate, and new characters such as the footman Michael and Edward's daughter by his first marriage, Annette Mason, fit in grandly with the old original characters.
  
  This book has all the trappings of a classic gothic novel, the big, old, damp house, the foggy, wet, moors and a cast of characters that you are never really sure if they are what they really portray themselves as or not. I love it!!
  
  5 stars and recommend highly to Jane Eyre and gothic novel fans in general. Can not wait for the next one!!
  
  Thank you to the author Luccia Gray and to Book Sirens for the free ARC of this novel, I am leaving my honest review in return.
• 
  Philina

  Woooow, I guess I have to continue reading the series now. This first book is mainly set-up. Finally, the story started to move forward and the book just ends. On the one hand, that is incredibly frustrating, on the other hand though, this is positive, because a proper and thorough set-up will hopefully lead to many a pay-off later on in the story.
  
  Here are a few thoughts I had while reading:
  
  Mason - with his cold eyes that never smile - is set up as the antagonist. He is much more vile than in the original novel where I put him down as just a fool. He thinks he can use Annette as his pawn, but I predict that she will turn into a queen (if we keep to the chess metaphors which Mason so enjoys) and turn her back on her manipulative uncle.
  
  I very much like Annette and loved reading her POV. It was my favorite POV and it felt close to Jane’s voice in the original novel. She has so much in common with Jane. I hope they will get along fine in the end, because they seem to be very similar. Her convent is basically Jane‘s orphanage (just a little less grim), an isolated closed community, in which the girl grows up and then later stays to teach for a while.
  Her meeting with John obviously parallels Jane meeting Rochester for the first time. Jane remarks that herself inside the story.
  I do hope Annette ends up with Michael, though. He seems to be a good man, it would be healthy for him to get over his crush on Jane and Annette is basically a Jane 2.0 (see parallels above). Unless of course, Michael is a male parallel to Jane and ends up marrying his employer.
  In any case, since he talks to the Sin Eater and has a lot of „screentime“, he seems to be a central character.
  
  On Annette‘s existence: Why would Rochester even have sex with Bertha in the tower? At that point in time he was thoroughly disgusted by her.
  I know this is nitpicky and would get rid of my favorite character of this novel. This story is basically a very elaborate fanfiction (I do not mean this in any derogatory way; I have read and enjoyed my fair share of fanfiction) and the author can use her creativity in any way she likes, as she does with assigning Rochester as Adele‘s father (ambiguous in the original novel, as Celine Varens cheated on Rochester) or implying that Rochester might have killed Bertha.
  
  Does the author hint at Leah being another bastard of Rochester? Dark eyes and dark hair and she was purposely picked out from the orphanage to serve the Rochesters? I have no idea of the timeline here, so it could be nothing. It would make sense for this version of Rochester (I disagree with his characterization; this interpretation completely negates his character arc in the original novel in my opinion; for more details see my review on Resurgam) to have spread his oats earlier in life as well.
  
  I liked the author‘s description of book characters being like children; they grow up and the author cannot control them anymore. Is this what happens to the characters of the original novel? First in Wide Sargasso Sea and then here?
  
  So, in conclusion, I look forward to continuing the story. I have very strong feelings about my favorite novel, Jane Eyre, and if I distance myself from them (as I disagree in some points about characterization), this novel was thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable.
  I guess that every fan of a book created their own version of the characters in their head. Like the author stated with characters „growing up“, these characters grow in your head and become individual to every fan. I think it is important to let this process happen. It enables the creativity of fans and strengthens the emotional connection to a favorite work of fiction.
  Even if I - in a hopefully friendly manner - disagree with the author („my“ Rochester is different from „her“ Rochester), it is great to read about the different interpretation of another fan and share thoughts. It keeps the work alive and talked about.
  
  Thanks to the author and BookSirens for a free review copy. The above stated opinion is my own and was given freely.
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  Carol

  I love gothic novels and I love Jane Eyre, however, I did not love this book. I desperately tried and I failed miserably. The characters were extremely hard for me to find an interest in and I am quite sure I will not attempt any more of this series.
  
  I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
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  Helen

  I find myself unsure of how to review this one because I am aware the order we are now instructed to read this series in is not necessarily the original series I read as more stories have been added before and after. In my head, I am reviewing this as a prequel novel to Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall.
  
  For fans of Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall this will provide depth and colour for the secondary characters in this series. If you wanted to understand more about the extent of Michael's loyalties to Jane and what he will do to be worthy of her, this book is it; if you wanted to know how much Richard Mason is driven by revenge, you've got it in spades; if you ever wondered about Annette Mason's life before she was taken to England, then wonder no more.
  
  More availability to the individual voices and characters in this series is not necessarily bad but I do wonder how new readers will take to this series, especially as it was the drama and immediacy of the situation that Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall opens which drew me in. Reading Resurgam, the novella, and Blood Moon at Eyre Hall seemed to me a long form of foreshadowing but filled with tension.
  
  Gray continues to play with both the histories of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea to put a stamp on this series so if you enjoy postmodern fiction, and delighting at the references she includes, then this series will be highly enjoyable to you - and what a treat you have in store with some of the following novels.
• 
  Susan

  1865. Twenty-four years have passed since Jane Eyre arrived at Thornfield Hall, they now live at Eyre Hall and Edward Rochester is dying. But more secrets are about to be revealed as Richard Mason has returned from Jamaica but not alone.
  An enjoyable story which is continued in parts 2 and 3