The Hour of Fatality: A Jane Rochester Mystery by LeAnne McKinley
Release date: October 25, 2019
Subgenre: Historical mystery, Victorian mystery
About The Hour of Fatality:
Charlotte Brontë's literary heroine, Jane Eyre, is newly married to Mr. Rochester, but her honeymoon bliss is marred when a dangerous outbreak of typhoid fever threatens her life. To escape their disease-ridden house, Mr. Rochester departs with her to the nearest refuge open to them: Ingram Park, home of the haughty and beautiful Blanche Ingram.
Jane isn't expecting a warm reception from her aristocratic hosts, but she hardly anticipates a stranger on the garden path with a bullet wound in his chest—and an inexplicable confession on his lips. The residents of Ingram Park are concealing a secret, and at least one of them is willing to sacrifice a man's life in order to hide the truth.
Aided by Mr. Rochester's long experience, Jane must rely on her courage, wit, and intuition if she is to identify the vindictive shooter, or the next attack will surely prove to be fatal.
Excerpt:
“Are you not curious, sir, who is visiting your house without your
knowledge?” I asked.
“It is not my house. There is no hospitable chair, no glowing
hearth, no serene couch here, is there? Do you see anything of the
kind? This is a decaying wreck. Time only is wanted to bury it in
the ground. Let it remain so. Come, take me back.” I put my arm
around him, but my feet did not move. “Jane, why are we not
moving?”
“It does not seem altogether right to me that Thornfield should be
abandoned.”
“Oh, never mind about Thornfield! I have been cursed with it for
long enough. Divine justice has blotted it from the earth—let it so
remain.”
“Edward, I may as well tell you at once that I am not leaving until
I have taken a closer look at that path.”
“I see you have not given up your witchery yet. Very well, get on
with your prognostications.” He folded his arms across his chest
and leaned heavily on one foot. He did not look pleased, reader,
for he hated to be reminded that his blindness rendered him feebler than I, but I would not detain him long. Thornfield had
become an unsettling place, an eerie vision that bore little
resemblance to the refuge I had once found it to be. I felt there
was still something strange here, however, some tale that was left
untold.
I walked on the grass, treading lightly, watching out for more
marks of passing man or beast, but I could make out nothing
definitive. I came to the old horse-chestnut tree, blasted and
broken by the lightning that had struck it over a year ago. The
trunk had broken high up, so that the stump still stood well above
my head, while at its feet lay the wreckage of its once noble
crown. My foot came down on something hard; I bent low to examine
it; I found a heavy coin: a guinea, with a glossy sheen upon it.
This was no long-forgotten gold piece, fallen from Mr. Rochester’s
pocket in better times. This was a recent arrival at this forsaken
spot. Perhaps there was something uncanny about Thornfield after
all.
“What the devil are you at, Jane?”
I slipped the gold into my pocket and rejoined my husband. We
retraced our steps to the waiting carriage. I was relieved to be
carried away from the remains of the shattered house. It seemed a
mere dream to return to this place as a settled home, yet I doubted
my fate could ever be divided from Thornfield Hall.
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About LeAnne McKinley:
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