Surrounded by mysteries, Stella finds her equal in the brooding but kind nineteen-year-old Captain Hugo. On the Rochester, there's no water ration, more books than one person could devour in a lifetime, and an AI who seems more friend than robot.īut no one warned Stella that the ship seems to be haunted, nor that it may be involved in a conspiracy that could topple the entire interstellar fleet. Stella Ainsley leaves poverty behind when she quits her engineering job aboard the Stalwart to become a governess on a private ship. Donne's atmospheric, twisty update of a cherished classic will keep you up late into the night!' -Elly Blake, NYT bestselling author of the Frostblood Saga 'Brightly Burning delivers a brooding gothic mystery and a swoony romance, all set in space. Kirkus Reviews called it 'a gripping examination of class, romance, and survival.'One of the most anticipated YA debuts of 2018, Brightly Burning is a gothic, romantic mystery with hints of Jane Eyre, Marissa Meyer, and Kiera Cass.' -Entertainment Weekly According to Publishers Weekly, it's an 'entertaining, loose adaptation of Brontë’s classic novel' (referring to Jane Eyre) with 'solid sci-fi worldbuilding, creative details, and a diverse cast,' though they criticized lack of development of the heroine’s childhood and the social criticism the story intends to deliver.

Reception īefore release, Entertainment Weekly called it 'one of the most anticipated YA debuts of 2018'. Wishing to escape the Stalwart, Stella is hired on as a governess on the private ship, the Rochester, captained by the young and handsome Hugo Fairfax, who has a secret that could threaten the safety of the entire fleet. Pitched as Jane Eyre in space, Brightly Burning follows seventeen-year-old engineer Stella Ainsley, who lives on the Stalwart, one of the oldest and poorest ships in the fleet. Plot īrightly Burning and the companion novel The Stars We Steal (published February 2020) are set in the far future, when humanity has fled Earth due to an Ice Age, living instead in orbit on spaceships. The novel is frequently described as a retelling or reimagining of Jane Eyre. Brightly Burning is a 2018 novel by Alexa Donne, an American young adult sci-fi and thriller author.

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne