Blog Tour: Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

The highly anticipated standalone from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the Graceling Realm series—a kaleidoscopic novel about grief, adventure, storytelling, and finding yourself in a world of seemingly infinite choices.

Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions.

Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintance who shows up and asks Jane to accompany her to a gala at her family’s island mansion called Tu Reviens.

Jane remembers her aunt telling her: “If anyone ever invites to you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you’ll go.” With nothing but a trunkful of umbrella parts to her name, Jane ventures out to the Thrash estate. Then her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn’t know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.

Jane has led anything but a normal life. Her parents died in a plane crash when she was quite small, and she was raised by her Aunt Magnolia, a college professor/nature photographer who regularly left her in the care of elderly neighbors while she traveled the world. In Jane’s first year of college, Aunt Magnolia left on one of these trips and never came back (she froze to death.) Now Jane is unanchored. She’s dropped out of college and is working in the campus bookstore when Kiran Thrash, her former tutor, invites her out to Tu Reviens. Jane drops everything because of the promise she made to her Aunt Magnolia, packs up her entire life, and moves out to Tu Reviens, where she immediately begins to work on her umbrellas.

Tu Reviens is a mansion on an island filled with priceless works of art – some honestly obtained, some not so honestly. In fact, even major parts of the house’s structure were transported there from other places, works of architectural wonder all cobbled together to make a new ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ of a house. The mystery begins when some of the works of art go missing. No one in the house, residents or guests, are quite what they appear to be, and Jane is swept up in the mystery.

This is a beautifully atmospheric story told mostly through the characters, rather than the plot. Or rather, the plot is there to serve the characters’ development. True confession: I am not yet finished with the novel – but I am OBSESSED with it. The characters are so realistic as to be people who could walk straight off the page and into real life. The setting is gorgeously drawn. The mystery is absorbing, not because of the art theft, but because of the characters involved. I would highly recommend this for any collection serving high school students.

*Enter a Rafflecopter giveaway  for a chance to be one (1) of three (3) winners to receive a hardcover copy of Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore. (ARV: $18.99 each).