11 books like Mr. Rochester

By Sarah Shoemaker,

Here are 11 books that Mr. Rochester fans have personally recommended if you like Mr. Rochester. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Austenland

Jennie Bennett Author Of #fangirlproblems

From my list on immerse in the world of K-pop and fangirl romance.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I watched my first K-drama, Heartstrings, on Netflix in 2011 I’ve become fascinated with Korean Pop Culture. I created one of the largest K-drama discussion groups on Facebook (KDA: Kdrama Anonymous) and published seven K-pop and K-drama-related Novellas. I traveled to Korea with my family in 2017 and was a panelist at Kcon in 2018. My passion for Korean Pop Culture has ventured into Webtoons and I often spend my time there catching up on all my favorite stories. I truly love Korean Culture and I’m happy to have participated in even a small part of it.

Jennie's book list on immerse in the world of K-pop and fangirl romance

Jennie Bennett Why did Jennie love this book?

It might not be Korean, but the same feeling is there. So many fangirls dream of visiting their favorite stories—and the main character Jane—in the book Austenland gets to do just that. When Jane’s grandmother buys her a trip to Austenland—the place where any girl’s Jane Austen dream can come true, she feels rude turning it down. Although, she’s enamored by men wearing smart coats and cravats, she’s also keenly aware of how fake everything is. It only takes a few days, however, to get swept up in the realness of the scene. A fangirl can hardly control her desire to be in her favorite book. This adorable and funny romance is exactly my cup of tea. 

By Shannon Hale,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Austenland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jane is a young New York woman who can never seem to find the right man-perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, however, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined. Is this total immersion in a fake Austenland enough to make Jane kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr.…


Book cover of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

Marilyn Brant Author Of According to Jane

From my list on romance inspired by British classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born a bookworm. As a kid, I’d read daily—for hours and with wild abandon—across authors and genres. But I always had a special love of British classics: Shakespeare, Forster, the Brontës, tales featuring lords, ladies, and English heroes like the Scarlet Pimpernel. When I first encountered Jane Austen, I was a high-school freshman. Her writing forever changed my perspective and, thus, my life. I went on to devour all of her books, and later, to study her work for a summer at Oxford University. I visited her old haunts, too, like Bath and Chawton, and remain charmed by her stories and inspired by her when I write my novels.

Marilyn's book list on romance inspired by British classics

Marilyn Brant Why did Marilyn love this book?

I fell for Baroness Orczy’s dashing fictional hero—the Scarlet Pimpernel—after watching the 1982 film by the same name starring Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour. I then went on to read the entire book series he was based on! It wasn’t until I came across Lauren Willig’s charming Pink Carnation series, which pays homage to clever and elusive British spies like the Scarlet Pimpernel, that I found a new historical spy hero to delight in. I loved the modern-day protagonist Eloise Kelly, who’s in present-day England working on her dissertation, as well as her historical counterpart Amy Balcourt, who leads the fascinating and romantic parallel story in this very enjoyable dual narrative novel.

By Lauren Willig,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret History of the Pink Carnation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nothing ever goes right for Eloise. The day she wears her new suede Jimmy Choos, it rains. When the Tube stops too quickly, she's the one thrown into some stranger's lap. And she's had her share of misfortune in the way of love. So, after deciding that romantic heroes must be a thing of the past, Eloise is ready for a fresh start but first she must finish her history dissertation on those most romantic of spies, the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. While rummaging through a pile of old letters and diaries, Eloise discovers something amazing, something that…


Book cover of Sex and Vanity

Marilyn Brant Author Of According to Jane

From my list on romance inspired by British classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born a bookworm. As a kid, I’d read daily—for hours and with wild abandon—across authors and genres. But I always had a special love of British classics: Shakespeare, Forster, the Brontës, tales featuring lords, ladies, and English heroes like the Scarlet Pimpernel. When I first encountered Jane Austen, I was a high-school freshman. Her writing forever changed my perspective and, thus, my life. I went on to devour all of her books, and later, to study her work for a summer at Oxford University. I visited her old haunts, too, like Bath and Chawton, and remain charmed by her stories and inspired by her when I write my novels.

Marilyn's book list on romance inspired by British classics

Marilyn Brant Why did Marilyn love this book?

Having been a huge fan of Kwan’s incredibly popular Crazy Rich Asians, I was already inclined to like this new book. Once I realized it was directly inspired by one of my longtime favorites, E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View (which I’d loved enough to write a modernization based on the original novel as well), I was immediately interested to see how Kwan would handle it. The comedy of manners and the exploration of cultural values and differences were the most intriguing aspects of the story to me. The focus on the ultra-wealthy—and all the toys and privileges that come with it—was less appealing, but it was still a thought-provoking element, given the context of the characters’ lives. Definitely worth checking out!

By Kevin Kwan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sex and Vanity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE ICONIC AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON CRAZY RICH ASIANS RETURNS WITH THE GLITTERING TALE OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO FINDS HERSELF TORN BETWEEN TWO MEN.

'Your perfect summer read' Daily Mail

'Delightful' Independent

'Laugh-out-loud funny' Sunday Mirror

When Lucie Tang Churchill meets George Zao at a lavish wedding in Capri, she can't stand him. She can't stand that he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so she can have a sea view, that he knows more about the island than she does, and worst of all, that he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins.…


Book cover of Julie and Romeo: A Novel

Marilyn Brant Author Of According to Jane

From my list on romance inspired by British classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born a bookworm. As a kid, I’d read daily—for hours and with wild abandon—across authors and genres. But I always had a special love of British classics: Shakespeare, Forster, the Brontës, tales featuring lords, ladies, and English heroes like the Scarlet Pimpernel. When I first encountered Jane Austen, I was a high-school freshman. Her writing forever changed my perspective and, thus, my life. I went on to devour all of her books, and later, to study her work for a summer at Oxford University. I visited her old haunts, too, like Bath and Chawton, and remain charmed by her stories and inspired by her when I write my novels.

Marilyn's book list on romance inspired by British classics

Marilyn Brant Why did Marilyn love this book?

There simply aren’t enough romances that focus on older main characters, so I particularly loved that this funny, Shakespeare-inspired love story had a 60-year-old divorced heroine and an equally mature widower hero. The protagonists are rival florists in Boston, and their families have been embroiled in a feud that has spanned several generations. Watching the way this novel played out—especially with so many meddling family members!—was great fun. And if, like me, you always wished the original Romeo and Juliet could have, maybe, been transformed into a comedy with a happier ending, Jeanne Ray’s light, modern romance just might be for you.

By Jeanne Ray,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Julie and Romeo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Romeo Cacciamani and Julie Roseman are rival florists whose families have hated each other for as long as anyone can remember, yet no one can remember why. When the two meet at a small business owners' seminar, an intense and unwavering attraction blooms between them. Unsure of what fate has in store, but deeply in love, Julie and Romeo are not about to let something as silly as a generations-long feud stand in their way. That is, until Romeo's octogenarian mother, Julie's meddling ex-husband, and a cast of grown Cacciamani and Roseman children begin to intervene with a passionate hatred…


Book cover of John Eyre: A Tale of Darkness and Shadow

Clarissa Harwood Author Of The Curse of Morton Abbey

From my list on gothic with strong female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve loved the gothic genre ever since I first read Jane Eyre as a student of Victorian Literature. My PhD thesis focused on Dracula, another Victorian gothic novel, and The Curse of Morton Abbey pays homage to classics like these. What I love most about the genre is its symbolism: like vivid dreams, gothic novels express our deepest fears and longings. It’s no accident that Jungian archetypes show up in gothic novels as often as they do in dreams, and I’ve enjoyed analyzing these texts in my work as an English professor. Also, I just really like stories that send chills up my spine and give my lifelong insomnia a purpose!

Clarissa's book list on gothic with strong female protagonists

Clarissa Harwood Why did Clarissa love this book?

Like Blackwood, Matthews retells Jane Eyre (and another classic gothic novel I won’t name to avoid spoiling the story). This is a gender-swapped version of Jane Eyre: John Eyre is a humble schoolmaster who accepts a position as tutor to two boys at the home of Bertha Rochester, a wealthy, eccentric, and beautiful woman with many secrets. Bertha is a refreshingly powerful heroine, and the supernatural spin Matthews puts on the original story takes the sinister atmosphere up several notches.

By Mimi Matthews,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked John Eyre as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A mesmerizing story." —Library Journal

One of BookBub's Best Books Arriving in 2021
One of Book Riot's Best Recent Vampire Reads
One of Barnes & Noble's Favorite Indie Books of 2021

From USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews comes a supernatural Victorian gothic retelling of Charlotte Brontë's timeless classic.

Yorkshire, 1843. When disgraced former schoolmaster John Eyre arrives at Thornfield Hall to take up a position as tutor to two peculiar young boys, he enters a world unlike any he's ever known. Darkness abounds, punctuated by odd bumps in the night, strange creatures on the moor, and a sinister silver…


Book cover of Wide Sargasso Sea

Deborah Kasdan Author Of Roll Back the World: A Sister's Memoir

From my list on startling encounters with mental illness.

Why am I passionate about this?

When my older sister died, I felt a pressing need to tell her story. Rachel was a strong, courageous woman, who endured decades in a psychiatric system that failed her. She was a survivor, but the stigma of severe mental illness made her an outcast from most of society. Even so, her enduring passion for poetry inspired me to write about her. I sought out other people’s stories. I enrolled in workshops and therapy. I devoured books and blogs by survivors, advocates, and family members. Everything I read pointed to a troubling rift between the dominant medical model and more humane, less damaging ones. This list represents a slice of my learning.

Deborah's book list on startling encounters with mental illness

Deborah Kasdan Why did Deborah love this book?

I knew about this Jane Eyre prequel for some time before reading it—reluctant perhaps to challenge my love for the Victorian romance. But I needed to understand the madwoman. What was her reality?

In Rhys’ book I encounter her in Jamaica, as Antoinette, Creole daughter of a former slaveholder. As a child she is traumatized by racial violence and family tragedy. Then Rochester comes to her island for an arranged marriage, predicated on possession of her inheritance.

When he feels threatened by a culture he doesn’t understand, he decides to crush Antoinette, even changing her name to Bertha just because he can. When she tries to resist the oppression of British patriarchy, she loses her freedom as well as her identity. No wonder she loses her mind.

By Jean Rhys,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Wide Sargasso Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys's return to the literary center stage. She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction's most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed…


Book cover of The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict

Anna Mae Duane Author Of Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys Who Grew Up to Change a Nation

From my list on Black New Yorkers you wish you had learned about in history class.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut. I’ve spent most of my career thinking about the role children have played in American culture. Adults, past and present, often overlook the intelligence and resilience of children who have managed to change both their immediate circumstances, and the world around them. I seek out these children and do my best to honor their stories. I’ve written or edited four other books on race and childhood, and have a podcast on children in history.

Anna's book list on Black New Yorkers you wish you had learned about in history class

Anna Mae Duane Why did Anna love this book?

This book surprised the scholarly community when the manuscript was first obtained at an estate sale.  A handwritten memoir that had lain largely unread for over a hundred and fifty years, this narrative depicts the sort of child we rarely see in the history books. A defiant apprentice, a runaway truant, a bartender, a prisoner, and author, Austin Reed offers us one plot twist after another. As a free person of color in the nineteenth century, Reed offers a compelling view into the life of one man who was determined to maintain his own sense of self, even in the face of a quickly growing carceral state that imprisoned him both as a child and as a man.

By Austin Reed, Caleb Smith (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The earliest known prison memoir by an African American writer—recently discovered and authenticated by a team of Yale scholars—sheds light on the longstanding connection between race and incarceration in America.

“[A] harrowing [portrait] of life behind bars . . . part confession, part jeremiad, part lamentation, part picaresque novel (reminiscent, at times, of Dickens and Defoe).”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

In 2009, scholars at Yale University came across a startling manuscript: the memoir of Austin Reed, a free black man born in the 1820s who spent…


Book cover of Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping

Margot Livesey Author Of The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing

From my list on reading and writing fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the Scottish countryside, reading passionately. When adults asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer came from my latest book: a nun, an outlaw, a queen, or an explorer. Not until I was in my twenties did I realise that I wanted to be the person behind the covers of a book, not between them. My early stories, written between waitressing shifts, were bafflingly bad. Gradually I began to understand that the fiction I loved was driven by a hidden machinery. I now teach at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and have been lucky enough to explore this idea with many talented students.

Margot's book list on reading and writing fiction

Margot Livesey Why did Margot love this book?

Salesses reminds us that “craft is a set of expectations,” and I love that he makes me question those expectations in fruitful ways. Jane Eyre does get to marry Rochester but at some cost. Salesses writes with warmth and wit about the western canon and about other literary traditions. I finished the book with a terrific reading list and new thoughts about my own writing and reading.

By Matthew Salesses,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Craft in the Real World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This national bestseller is "a significant contribution to discussions of the art of fiction and a necessary challenge to received views about whose stories are told, how they are told and for whom they are intended" (Laila Lalami, The New York Times Book Review).

The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts.…


Book cover of Househusband

Allan Hunter Author Of That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class

From my list on memoirs from interns, activists, feminists and others.

Why am I passionate about this?

Allan D. Hunter came out as genderqueer in 1980, more than 20 years before “genderqueer” was trending. He decided that women's studies in academia was the proper place to discuss these ideas about gender, so he headed to New York to major in women's studies as one of the first male students to do so. 

Allan's book list on memoirs from interns, activists, feminists and others

Allan Hunter Why did Allan love this book?

This tale is the autobiographical account of a married man who, when his wife gets an especially nice promotion opportunity, agrees with her that it makes more sense for him to stay at home with their young girl child.

He takes his role and its responsibilities seriously. His story is mostly the story of what is involved being the domestic partner on a day-to-day basis, but braided into that is the specifically gendered experience of doing all that as a male person in this society.

By Ad Hudler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Househusband as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lincoln Menner is finding out just how hard it is to be a woman. When his wife Jo was offered her dream job, Linc supported her wholeheartedly, leaving his thriving landscape business in Los Angeles and moving to Rochester, New York. This was a chance to escape the cloying needs and atrocious tastes of his celebrity clientele, start over in fresh surroundings, and spend a little quality time with their three-year-old daughter, Violet.

But Linc had no idea what it really meant to be a househusband: To stay home every day, folding laundry, cleaning soap scum, and teaching his little…


Book cover of Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks

Mitch Cullin Author Of Tideland

From my list on to summon the off-kilter beauty of the grotesque.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm Mitch Cullin, or so I've been told. Besides being the ethical nemesis of the late Jon Lellenberg and his corrupt licensing/copyright trolls at the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., I'm also a documentary photographer, very occasional author of books, and full-time wrangler of feral cats.

Mitch's book list on to summon the off-kilter beauty of the grotesque

Mitch Cullin Why did Mitch love this book?

The black-and-white images of Ralph Eugene Meatyard have long fascinated me and informed my visual work and writing. Meatyard was, by profession, an optician in Lexington, Kentucky, yet his personal passion was making photographs. His subjects were his wife, children, and family friends, who he often posed in murky settings as they wore masks and held dolls. These images are both disquieting and euphonious, tapping into something primal that hints at the secretive world of childhood.

By Eugenia Parry, Elizabeth Siegel, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (photographer)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ralph Eugene Meatyard as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Family man, optician, avid reader and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard created and explored a fantasy world of dolls and masks, in which his family and friends played the central roles on an ever-changing stage. His monograph, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, published posthumously in 1974, recorded his wife and family posed in various disquieting settings, wearing masks and holding dolls and evoking a penetrating emotional and psychological landscape. The book won his work critical acclaim and has been hugely influential in the intervening decades. Dolls and Masks opens the doors on the decade of rich experimentation that immediately preceded…


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