Last year I picked up the first book the The Lady Janies series by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows: My Lady Jane.  I did a short review on it last summer.  You can find that here.

I couldn’t wait until the next book in the series came out this summer–right in time for the Fourth of July.  I pre-ordered My Plain Jane and it arrived right before we left for the lake house for a long weekend.

I made myself finish one book before I picked it up.  I didn’t put it down until I had finished it.

It was just as much fun of a read as the first book.  It’s a retelling of Jane Eyre.  And it’s fun.  The whole Gothic feel of Bronte’s Eyre is not present here.  The main points of the story are still the same.  Jane is an orphan.  She goes from her aunt’s house to a school.  From the school, she goes to Mr. Rochester’s house to be a governess.  Mr. Rochester is just as moody and secretive.  There’s still the whole secret wife thing.

But that’s about where the similarities end.

This Jane is able to see ghosts.  And her best friend is a ghost.  Jane ends up with a human friend and a couple of young man friends and they go on quite the adventure.  Of course, they end up saving the day, so that makes for a fun ending.

Last week, I read Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi.

It’s about a girl, Laylee, who is left by herself to take care of all of the dead in the land of Whichwood.  She’s only 13.  And this is way more than she should have to handle.  Two children from Ferenwood come to help her out and they, together with a local boy and his mother, end up with a lot more to deal with than they anticipated.

These are magical countries and everyone has their own magical abilities.  It’s Laylee’s magic that makes her the only one that’s able to give the dead a proper send off.  As part of her magic, she’s also able to see ghosts.  The other children in the story all have their own abilities that come into the story as well.

It’s a fun adventure with different twists and turns and there are several times I thought everything was going to end badly.

As with My Plain Jane, some of the scenes in Whichwood involve ghosts and such.  If these books were movies, I wouldn’t likely be watching them.

But they are both fun to read so long as you don’t mind the magic and ghosts and such.  The humor and sarcasm in My Plain Jane made it lighthearted instead of scary.  And the magic in Whichwood made it just a part of the way things were with Laylee and her friends.

If either of these books sounds like your thing, I’d say go for it.