Brightly Burning

Stella was raised to be a mechanic on the floundering spaceship she calls home.  A fleet of ships has been in orbit around an earth encased in ice.  It's already been over 200 years, and ships that house the poor farm workers are failing while the rich are living in luxury.

Stella may be a mechanic, but she wants to be a teacher.  She loves teaching science and literature to the children on her ship, but teaching posts are few and far between.  She's been turned down by all of the major ships, so when she gets an offer to be a governess on the private ship, Rochester, she jumps at the chance.

From the start, the experience is strange.  There are rumors the ship is haunted.  Stella scoffs at the idea, but she can't dismiss the strange noises she hears outside her cabin at night.  The ship is luxuriously furnished with real wood and paper books.  Then there is Captain Hugo Fairfax.  He's much younger than Stella expected, just a few years older than she is, and he is prone to fits of drunken moodiness.

A series of strange accidents convince Stella someone on board is trying to kill the captain, but who could it be?  As she tries to solve the mystery, she and Hugo grow closer, but even if her watchful eyes can uncover the truth, it might not be enough to save him.

I really wanted to love Alexa Donne's Jane Eyre in space.  Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorites, and I was hoping to love this book, too.  I like it, and sometimes I really liked it, but it wasn't as wonderful as I wanted it to be.  There were some sections that felt like simple retellings of the original story but without the glory of Charlotte Bronte's style.  There are some great things about this story, though.  I love the high stakes element of a frozen earth and dying spaceships, the addition of a real conflict between the social classes, and the addition of a medical mystery.  I don't want to give too much away, but the handling of the crazy lady in the attic is well-done and totally appropriate for older middle school readers.

The ending fell a little flat, too, and I think that will be most disappointing to teen readers.  For all the stolen kisses earlier in the book, there's not much passionate embracing when Stella and Hugo finally get to be together in the end.  I get that Donne was following the format of the original, but it just felt a little removed to me.

Overall, I'm probably too critical because I've read Jane Eyre so many times and loved it since I was a young teenager myself.  I did enjoy the book.  I pretty much read it in one sitting, and I will definitely read Donne's next book which will be another classic novel in space retelling.  I would hand this one to fans of the Lunar Chronicles.  Grades 7 and up.