The daughter of the celebrated Parisian actress C line Varens, Ad le is a homesick, forlorn eight-year-old when she is first brought to Thornfield Hall by Edward Fairfax Rochester, her mother's former lover and -- though the grand estate's brooding lord refuses to acknowledge it -- quite possibly Ad le's father. Lonely and ill at ease in the cold, unfamiliar English countryside, the sad, precocious child longs to return to the glitter of Paris ... and to the arms of the mother who has been lost to her. But a small ray of sunshine brightens her eternal gloom when a stranger arrives to school and care for her: a mousy and serious yet intensely loving young governess named Jane Eyre.
As the years pass, Ad le watches with wonder as an unexpected romance blossoms between her governess and her guardian -- even as her curiosity leads her deeper into the shadowy manor, toward the dark and terrible secret that is locked away in a high garret. And on Jane and Rochester's planned wedding day, it is Ad le who is instrumental in bringing about the fiery catastrophe that shatters her "family" and sends her fleeing, frightened and alone, back to France.
But Paris is no longer the glamorous ideal she remembers. Intent on finding her mother, Ad le is soon lost in a world of sham sparkle and ruthless exploiters. Yet her will remains strong as she grows and learns, determined to follow her solitary odyssey to its inevitable conclusion, as she -- like Jane Eyre and the tormented Edward Rochester -- searches for salvation and love amid the ruins of misfortune.
A novel of wondrous imagination and vivid intensity, Emma Tennant's Ad le brilliantly captures the nuances and spirit of the cherished classic that inspired it, while being a bold and original literary work that stands firmly and gloriously on its own.