4 Janes

One of my all-time favorite novels is Jane Eyre, and I always enjoy reading retellings of it. And so I couldn’t resist reading Marian Yee’s debut, 4 Janes. This book is divided into four reimaginings of Jane, two continuing from Charlotte Brontë’s established storytelling, and two drawing up entirely new versions of the titular character.

Parts one and three follow the original Jane in the mid-nineteenth century. First, after learning that Mr. Rochester died in the fire, Jane decides to marry St. John, moving with him to India for missionary work. Then in part three, Jane did marry Mr. Rochester, but after the loss of their child, she becomes a time traveler of sorts, always searching for her son.

The other two stories imagine a Vietnamese family between 1984 and 2008. In part two, a bookseller in 1980s Vietnam is secretly in love with a missionary. She has his child, but then her son is stolen away to the United States. The final story follows that same boy, now an adult in 2008. He becomes a tutor for a rich man’s adopted child, ultimately living out his own version of the original Jane Eyre narrative. All four parts are closely connected despite disparate settings and characters.

What I Liked:

• Distinct reimaginings of Jane Eyre. She’s one of literature’s icons, and the original book offered numerous themes to further explore. In 4 Janes, we get to follow two threads from the classic story itself: What if Jane had married St. John after all? Or: What would Jane’s marriage to Mr. Rochester have looked like? Alternately, we get a character in Vietnam who is a fan of Charlotte Brontë’s famous novel, and her son ultimately lives a scenario similar to Jane’s experiences at Thornfield Hall. These four stories span time and space, and in the case of the third one, genre as well. Time travel is certainly more speculative than the other three stories!
• Discussions of race and sexuality added to those of class, gender, and lineage. The original Jane Eyre brought up commentary on identity. Here, a new dimension is added with two of the stories centering Vietnamese characters. The latter, in particular, examines racial identity and racism, in addition to sexuality and gender identity. These themes fit well with the original novel’s analysis of agency and privilege.
• Unconventional storytelling. 4 Janes is neither a traditional novel nor a collection of short stories. Instead, it inhabits a space somewhere in the middle. The four parts are distinct from each other, and yet they intersect in significant ways. Perhaps it’s more like two stories, each divided into two halves. But even then, the past and the present timelines do seem to overlap. Ultimately, this book is not linear or especially easy to follow. It will force you to think outside the normal bounds of a character’s journey through life. It’s abstract and thought-provoking, which can lead to unique interpretations and deeper thinking.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• It’s not always clear what’s happening. Specifically in part three, in which Jane Eyre Rochester is time traveling to many different years and places, the narrative goes in a much more metaphysical direction. This part was perhaps the most interesting and yet the hardest to follow. I wish it was developed further to make for a slightly more straightforward reading.
• Some stories feel rushed. The above-mentioned time traveling story could have been its own novel. Similarly, the final story, about a gay Vietnamese man and his own Mr. Rochester experience, felt like it could have been a longer retelling. This book is ambitious, but perhaps could have cut one of the parts or increased the total page count.

Audiobook:

The audiobook for 4 Janes comes with multiple narrators. Each one does an excellent job of capturing their particular character and setting. Elizabeth Knowelden has a gentle tone that matches the original Jane Eyre we all know and love. In part two, VyVy Nguyen portrays the Vietnamese woman in the 1980s and David Lee Huynh portrays her son later on. Across the stories, the three narrators do justice to their versions of Jane.

Final Thoughts

4 Janes is a thoughtful and ambitious work of fiction that will appeal to fans of the original Jane Eyre who also crave something more expansive. This novel defies genres or expectations, offering something wholly original and yet in tune with the classic story. It isn’t the easiest read, but I did enjoy the diverse lives Jane got to live here.

Special thanks to Little A, Brilliance Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy 4 Janes here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

4 Janes by Marian Yee
Audiobook Narrator	Elizabeth Knowelden; VyVy Nguyen; David Lee Huynh
Audience	Adult
Genre	Historical Fiction; Contemporary Fiction; Fantasy
Setting	England; India; Vietnam; US
Number of Pages	269
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	June 30, 2026
Publisher	Little A

Official Summary

Through time, space, and the transcendence of maternal love, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is reimagined in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong.

Jane Eyre is a missionary’s wife.

A bookseller in Vietnam.

A time traveler.

A hero in a modern gothic tale.

What if Jane’s story didn’t end with her marriage to Edward Rochester? What if she never married him at all?

In one lifetime, Jane travels to India and Burma as Mrs. St. John Rivers. In another, she’s Trang, a young woman selling books in Vietnam, vying for the love of the local priest. Yet another picks up where Brontë left her, now grieving the loss of her child and crossing time and space to find him. And finally, a young Vietnamese-American man searching for himself in Boston, a tutor whose relationship with a veteran feels strangely, achingly familiar…

Each thread tells Jane’s story in sweeping, heartbreaking shades of loss, vulnerability, yearning, and the fierce love of mother and child that withstands time and space. While she may long for something more out of a life she didn’t get to choose, she can still decide what to make of it.