Shirley - Charlotte Brontë, Lucasta Miller, Jessica Cox
How is it that I never read this book before now? It's magnificent! It's everything I love about Jane Eyre, but with so much more to satisfy my more mature literary palate.

It has Charlotte's beautiful, lyric language, serious discussions about religion and spirituality, not just one but two heroines to root for, feminism, romance, societal inequality and social justice.

It is very nearly the perfect novel.

And since I've apparently become an inarticulate, gushing fool, I'll stop now.