Book Review: All Hallows at Eyre Hall by Luccia Gray

Coming of age at the Ethel Harpst Home, an orphanage in the North Georgia Mountains, when I first read Jane Eyre at fourteen, my primary focus on that book by Charlotte Bronte was Jane Eyre’s life. Her trials and tribulations facing loss and the strengths she relied on to see her through.

In April of this year, at age fifty-three, I chanced to read it again. I was visiting the cabin in North Carolina. It was raining all week, damp and cold in the mountains. I kept a big fire in the huge stone fireplace in the central room of the cabin and I planted myself in front of the hearth all week and read the book again.

My second reading of Jane Eyre was much different than my first. I saw the relationships between the characters having been through so many life changes myself. The rich and lofty descriptions…