Midsummer at Eyre Hall: Book Three Eyre Hall Trilogy
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Max stirred, pushing his face into the pillow and covering his head with another larger cushion to block out the noise.
“If you’re not quiet, you’ll wake up Daddy and Granny will hear you and find you,” I warned my children.
“Has Mummy stopped counting yet?” asked my brother, poking his head out from under the bed.
I hung my head out of the window and looked down to the garden below. The sun was fiercely heating the grass. There was no one in sight. Where had my mother and Michael gone?
I shook my head and smiled. “They’re impossible.”
“What’s wrong, Mummy?” asked Beatrice. “Is Granny coming?”
My mother was rolling on the grass under the shade of a chestnut tree with Michael, who was tickling her mercilessly. I knocked on the windowpane with my engagement ring. She looked over Michael’s shoulder and waved.
I pushed the window to its full width and shouted, “I just thought I’d let you know, there’s no one hiding up here, Mummy.”
“I lost count,” she shouted back. “I’ll start again. One, two, three…”
She stopped counting when Michael kissed her, and I turned to the three giggling children under the bed. “Don’t worry, Granny will never find you.”
The End
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The Eyre Hall Trilogy
All Hallows at Eyre Hall, Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall and Midsummer at Eyre Hall, are the three novels which make up the The Eyre Hall Trilogy.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about what might have happened to Jane Eyre after over twenty years of marriage to Mr. Rochester.
Thank you for reading. Please consider posting a review on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Goodreads, and spreading the word on social media.
The trilogy is complete, but I still have plenty of stories to tell you about Jane, Michael, John, Annette, Helen, Max, and many of the other characters who have appeared throughout the trilogy. If you’d like to find out more about what happened next, let me know, by contacting me on Social Media. You never know, there could be a fourth volume, if my readers are keen enough!
Visit my blog Re–Reading Jane Eyre and Luccia Gray’s Facebook for updates on The Eyre Hall Trilogy. You can also follow me on Twitter @LucciaGray, or email me at luccia.gray@gmail.com
About the Author
Luccia Gray was born in London where she graduated in Modern Foreign Languages. She now lives in the south of Spain with her husband. She has three children and three grandchildren. When she’s not reading or writing, she teaches English at an Adult Education Centre and is English Language Tutor at the Spanish Distance University.
She has written three novels, which make up The Eyre Hall Trilogy.
All Hallows at Eyre Hall
Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall
Midsummer at Eyre Hall
Acknowledgements
Who thought writing was a solitary endeavour? I could never have published this novel without the hundreds of people who have been supporting me throughout the process.
Thank you to my generous and irreplaceable beta readers: Antonio, Betty, Elizabeth, Karen, Kit, Sami, and Sofia, without whose time, help, expertise, and encouragement, this novel would never have been published.
Thank you to Melody Simmons for the unique and beautiful cover art, which has been my novel’s distinctive pictographic representation even before it was published.
Thank you Alison Williams, for your advice and patience editing and proofreading my manuscript.
My gratitude to all my friends at Goodreads, and to my friends and followers on my WordPress Blog, Rereading Jane Eyre, on Twitter, and on Facebook, for their generous help and support.
Thank you to everybody who read and especially those who took the time to review my first and second novels, All Hallows at Eyre Hall and Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall. You have all encouraged me to finish book 3, Midsummer at Eyre Hall.
A big thank you to my family, friends, and colleagues for believing in me.
Special thanks to my daughter, Sofia, for her constant help and support in this project.
Last, but not least, thanks to Amazon for making this venture possible.
Afterword
I would never have felt the power of prose, if I had not read Jane Eyre, when I was an impressionable and romantic thirteen-year-old. On the other hand, I would never have fully appreciated Jane Eyre, if I had not read Wide Sargasso Sea thirty years later, when I was an active and overrun mother of three teenage children. Finally, I would never have had the idea of writing this novel, if I had not taught Postcolonial Literature in English to undergraduates, whose lively discussions and thought-provoking questions ignited my overactive imagination. As a result, both novels merged in my mind to re-emerge by means of my audacious pen. My humble and sincere tribute to both literary giants, who contributed to make me not only the writer I am, but also the person I have become.
I would also like to acknowledge that Midsummer at Eyre Hall would never have been written without the inspiration of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Rediscover the world of Jane Eyre…
Meet the Cast of ‘Midsummer at Eyre Hall’
Contents
Part One: Season of Darkness
Chapter I – Abodes of Horror
Chapter II - The Best of Times
Chapter III – Betrayal
Chapter IV – Winter of Despair
Chapter V – The Worst of Times
Chapter VI – Fugitives
Chapter VII – Nothing Before Us
Chapter VIII – Encroachment
Chapter IX – The Age of Foolishness
Chapter X – Wrath
Part Two: Spring of Hope
Chapter XI – Locked out of Heaven
Chapter XII– Everything before Us
Chapter XIII – Epoch of Incredulity
Chapter XIV – Stairway to Heaven
Chapter XV Pride, Greed, and Lust.
Chapter XVI – The Agony and the Ecstasy
Chapter XVII Manderley
Chapter XVIII – In Search of Helen
Chapter XIX The Road to Hell
Chapter XX – First Love
Part Three: Season of Light
Chapter XXI – Persuasion
Chapter XXII – Seashells and Puppies
Chapter XXIII – Weddings
Chapter XXIV – Mr. de Winter’s Request
Chapter XXV – Thunder Moon at Eyre Hall
Chapter XXVI – Susan’s Inferno
Chapter XXVII – James Eyre Kirkpatrick
Chapter XXVIII – Max and Helen
Chapter XXIX – The Light and the Darkness
Chapter XXX – Return to Eyre Hall
Epilogue– Midsummer at Eyre Hall
The Eyre Hall Trilogy
About the Author
Acknowledgements