Classic Novel Retellings
Join me as we journey around the world in our book club. This month we are switching things up a bit and enjoying a retelling of a classic novel.
Our pick for the book club reading is Anna K by Jenny Lee. Set against the glittering backdrop of Manhattan high society, this modern take on Anna Karenina follows seventeen-year-old Anna as she navigates privilege, pressure, and first love. When she meets the magnetic Alexia “Count” Vronsky, her perfectly controlled life begins to unravel in ways she never imagined.
Have you read Anna Karenina? Or any of these other classic novels? Do you have a favorite retelling?
Book Club Pick
Anna K by Jenny Lee
What is Anna K about?
At seventeen, Anna K is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.
As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until the night she meets Alexia “Count” Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.
Classic Novel Match – Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels – of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life’s many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.
More Retellings and Classic Novel Pairings
Some stories just never let go of us, no matter how many years—or centuries—go by. From whirlwind adventures to swoony romances and gothic mysteries, the classics have given us unforgettable characters and big, timeless themes that still hit close to home.
This month, we’re pairing each classic with modern retellings that reimagine the story in a whole new way. You’ll see familiar plots and personalities in fresh settings, from contemporary love stories to clever twists that turn old favorites on their heads. It’s the perfect reminder that great stories don’t fade—they just keep finding new ways to speak to us.
Here’s a list of eight more classic novels and retellings for each. Will you tackle a familiar classic or jump into something you haven’t read before?
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Jules Verne’s classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days follows the adventures of Phileas Fogg and his faithful valet Passepartout as they attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or less.
A wealthy English gentleman, Fogg spends most of his time at his club. One day he got involved in an argument over a newspaper article stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it was now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. Fogg accepts a challenge from his whist partners and after betting half his fortune, he abandons his quiet domestic routine to undertake the daring feat of circling the globe in only 80 days, an achievement unheard of in Victorian times.
Fogg and Passepartout avail themselves of virtually every known means of transportation in their wild race against time, while a devious detective follows their every move and introduces fresh obstacles to delay their journey. The quick-witted Fogg faces each new hurdle with unshakable composure. They travel through a constantly shifting setting of exotic locales, including the jungles of India, a Chinese opium den, a Japanese circus, a full speed train ride under attack by Sioux and a bloodless mutiny aboard a tramp steamer.
Eighty Days to Elsewhere by kc dyer
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Fun side note… This is the first book we did together in the Literary Escapes Book Club!
“The Amazing Race” meets Around the World in 80 Days as a woman desperate to save her family bookstore falls for her competition.
Born and raised in New York City, Ramona Keene dreams of attending photography school and traveling to Paris, but her reality never quite catches up with her imagination. Instead, she works at her uncles’ quaint bookstore, where the tea is plentiful and all the adventures are between the covers of secondhand books. But when the new landlord arrives with his Evil Nephew in tow, Romy’s quiet life comes crashing down. He plans to triple the rent, something her uncles can’t afford.
In order to earn the money to help save the bookstore, Romy applies for a job at ExLibris Expeditions, a company that re-creates literary journeys. Romy snags the oddest internship ever: retrace Phileas Fogg’s journey from Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days and plan a suitable, contemporary adventure for a client. The task is close to impossible; sticking to the original route means no commercial aircraft permitted, and she’s got a lot less than eighty days to work with. Shaking off her fear of leaving home, Romy takes on the challenge, only to discover she’s got competition. Worse, Dominic Madison turns out to be the – unfortunately hot – nephew of her family’s worst enemy.
Can Romy win the race and circle the globe in time to save the bookstore? And what happens when she starts to fall for the very person who may just be the death of her dreams?
Listen to an interview with kc dyer on the Literary Escapes Podcast
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows us the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.
A Certain Appeal by Vanessa King
Genre: Rom com
After a betrayal derailed her interior design career, Liz Bennet found a fresh start in New York. Now an executive assistant by day and stage kitten by night, she’s discovered a second home with the performers at Meryton, Manhattan’s top-tier burlesque venue. Love’s the last thing on her mind when she locks eyes with Will Darcy across the crowded club, yet the spark between them is undeniable—that is, until she overhears the uptight wealth manager call her merely “tolerable.”
Bennet is determined to write Darcy off, but once their besties fall head-over-heels, they’re thrown into each other’s orbit again and again. Each encounter begins to feel more heated than the last, but is their chemistry enough to topple that terrible first impression? What’s more, when a charming newcomer arrives on the scene with accusations against Darcy, and a sudden development leaves Meryton’s fate in jeopardy, Bennet will have to decide who to trust in time to salvage her design dreams, her heart, and the stage she shares with her found family…
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Fun side note: This was also a previous book club selection!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep.
Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own non-negotiable rules:
· Never trust an outsider
· Never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations
· And never, ever, defy your family
Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.
Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life.
As the two clash, their assumptions crumble like the spun sugar on one of DJ’s stunning desserts. But before a future can be savored there’s a past to be reckoned with…
A family trying to build home in a new land.
A man who has never felt at home anywhere.
And a choice to be made between the two.
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Genre: Historical Fiction
While Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters fuss over balls and husbands, Sarah, their orphaned housemaid, is beginning to chafe against the boundaries of her class. When a new footman arrives at Longbourn under mysterious circumstances, the carefully choreographed world she has known all her life threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Mentioned only fleetingly in Jane Austen’s classic, here Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Regency England and, in doing so, uncovers the real world of the novel that has captivated readers’ hearts around the world for generations.
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A Flynn
Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy
(Another previous book club pick!)
Perfect for fans of Jane Austen, this engrossing debut novel offers an unusual twist on the legacy of one of the world’s most celebrated and beloved authors: two researchers from the future are sent back in time to meet Jane and recover a suspected unpublished novel.
London, 1815: Two travelers—Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane—arrive in a field in rural England, disheveled and weighed down with hidden money. Turned away at a nearby inn, they are forced to travel by coach all night to London. They are not what they seem, but rather colleagues who have come back in time from a technologically advanced future, posing as wealthy West Indies planters—a doctor and his spinster sister. While Rachel and Liam aren’t the first team from the future to “go back,” their mission is by far the most audacious: meet, befriend, and steal from Jane Austen herself.
Carefully selected and rigorously trained by The Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics, disaster-relief doctor Rachel and actor-turned-scholar Liam have little in common besides the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in. Circumstances that call for Rachel to stifle her independent nature and let Liam take the lead as they infiltrate Austen’s circle via her favorite brother, Henry.
But diagnosing Jane’s fatal illness and obtaining an unpublished novel hinted at in her letters pose enough of a challenge without the continuous convolutions of living a lie. While her friendship with Jane deepens and her relationship with Liam grows complicated, Rachel fights to reconcile the woman she is with the proper lady nineteenth-century society expects her to be. As their portal to the future prepares to close, Rachel and Liam struggle with their directive to leave history intact and exactly as they found it…however heartbreaking that may prove.
Listen to the interview with Kathleen Flynn on Literary Escapes Podcast
This book is not the usual Jane Austen retelling/inspired book and was quite a fun read! Check out the interview: Episode 91 Kathleen Flynn
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A novel of intense emotional power, heightened atmosphere and fierce intelligence, Jane Eyre dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman’s search for equality and freedom on her own terms. Its heroine Jane endures loneliness and cruelty in the home of her heartless aunt and the cold charity of Lowood School. Her natural independence and spirit prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of a shameful secret forces her to make a terrible choice.
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
Genre: Thriller
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?
With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?
Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
Genre: Mystery
“Reader, I murdered him.”
A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre “last confessions” of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.
Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents—the fascinating but caustic Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor returned from the Sikh Wars, and the gracious Sikh butler Mr. Sardar Singh, whose history with Mr. Thornfield appears far deeper and darker than they pretend. As Jane catches ominous glimpses of the pair’s violent history and falls in love with the gruffly tragic Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: Can she possess him—body, soul, and secrets—without revealing her own murderous past?
Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert
Flaubert’s erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of a married woman’s affair caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. Its heroine, Emma Bovary, is stifled by provincial life as the wife of a doctor. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations, the consequences are devastating. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi.’
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
Then, one rainy night, she meets Kiyoshi, a successful restaurateur. In him, she rediscovers freedom, friendship, and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she is living two lives—and in the end, we can choose only one.
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, in West Egg, Long Island, where the party never seems to end, he’s often alone in the glittering Jazz Age crowd, watching and waiting, as speculation swirls around him–that he’s a bootlegger, that he was a German spy during the war, that he even killed a man. As writer Nick Carraway is drawn into this decadent orbit, he begins to see beneath the shimmering surface of the enigmatic Gatsby, for whom one thing will always be out of reach: Nick’s cousin, the married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby’s just across the bay.
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Gustav Flaubert
Genre: Fantasy
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.
But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor
Genre: Historical Fiction
On a sultry August day in 1922, Jay Gatsby is shot dead in his West Egg swimming pool. To the police, it appears to be an open-and-shut case of murder/suicide when the body of George Wilson, a local mechanic, is found in the woods nearby.
Then a diamond hairpin is discovered in the bushes by the pool, and three women fall under suspicion. Each holds a key that can unlock the truth to the mysterious life and death of this enigmatic millionaire.
Daisy Buchanan once thought she might marry Gatsby—before her family was torn apart by an unspeakable tragedy that sent her into the arms of the philandering Tom Buchanan.
Jordan Baker, Daisy’s best friend, guards a secret that derailed her promising golf career and threatens to ruin her friendship with Daisy as well.
Catherine McCoy, a suffragette, fights for women’s freedom and independence, and especially for her sister, Myrtle Wilson, who’s trapped in a terrible marriage.
Their stories unfold in the years leading up to that fateful summer of 1922, when all three of their lives are on the brink of unraveling. Each woman is pulled deeper into Jay Gatsby’s romantic obsession, with devastating consequences for all of them.
Jillian Cantor revisits the glittering Jazz Age world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, retelling this timeless American classic from the women’s perspective. Beautiful Little Fools is a quintessential tale of money and power, marriage and friendship, love and desire, and ultimately the murder of a man tormented by the past and driven by a destructive longing that can never be fulfilled.
Mrs. Wilson’s Affair by Allyson Reedy
Genre: Historical Fiction
It is 1922. Myrtle Wilson lives a lonely, desolate existence above her husband’s garage in the “valley of ashes” between New York and Long Island. All her dreams—and her marriage itself—are turning to dust until she crosses paths with Tom Buchanan on the subway. In one moment, Myrtle’s life is irrevocably changed. “You can’t live forever, you can’t live forever” becomes the mantra that galvanizes her decision to embark on a fateful affair with the wealthy stranger. She battles with herself and the forces that keep her boxed in, experimenting with what little power she has over the men in her life, her situation growing more dire in the frenetic days leading up to her death.
Paralleling the events of The Great Gatsby—and in key scenes even masterfully weaving in original dialogue—Mrs. Wilson’s Affair provides a poignant look at how isolation and unfulfilled desire can shape our destiny and will transform how you read Fitzgerald’s classic novel.
The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson-Wheeler
Genre: Mystery
Greta Gatsby has at last graduated from her stifling finishing school, is on the brink of turning twenty-one, and hopes to finally have her own legendary summer with her brother and guardian, Jay, at his West Egg mansion. Orphaned along with him some years before the war, Greta has seen her fortunes rise on the high tide of his entrepreneurship, even as she has remained in the shadows of his life—too young to join his late-night soirees or infamous summer parties and too shy to trade banter and barbs with his cadre of new friends.
Jay’s wish for her has been to shake off their new-money stain and gain a level of social acceptance he’s never quite enjoyed. She’s simply looking forward to reconnecting with him and embracing life as a modern young woman. She arrives at West Egg with a fresh and daring new bob hairdo to find Daisy and Tom Buchanan also summering at the mansion, along with Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker. And it’s hard to be noticed when the luminous and multifaceted Daisy Buchanan is in the same room.
But when one of their guests is murdered, Greta turns sleuth as the veil is lifted on Gatsby’s household and its inhabitants, including its staff. Tightly plotted, with thrilling prose and sensuous detail, this homage to and reinvention of a world American readers have lionized for generations ultimately reveals the secrets and lies that perpetuate the romantic notion that being rich is the answer to all of life’s problems.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a timeless tale of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—growing up during the American Civil War. This beloved novel explores the joys and challenges of family life, the bonds of sisterhood, and the pursuit of dreams in the face of adversity.
Follow the lives of the March sisters as they navigate the ups and downs of adolescence and adulthood. From Meg’s search for balance between love and responsibility, to Jo’s fiery ambition as a writer, Beth’s quiet strength, and Amy’s artistic dreams, each sister’s journey is filled with heartwarming lessons and memorable moments.
Belittled Women by Amanda Sellet
Genre: YA
Lit’s about to hit the fan. Jo Porter has had enough Little Women to last a lifetime. As if being named after the sappiest family in literature wasn’t sufficiently humiliating, Jo’s mom, ahem Marmee, leveled up her Alcott obsession by turning their rambling old house into a sad-sack tourist attraction.
Now Jo, along with her siblings, Meg and Bethamy (yes, that’s two March sisters in one), spends all summer acting out sentimental moments at Little Women Live!, where she can feel her soul slowly dying.
So when a famed photojournalist arrives to document the show, Jo seizes on the glimpse of another life: artsy, worldly, and fast-paced. It doesn’t hurt that the reporter’s teenage son is also eager to get up close and personal with Jo—to the annoyance of her best friend, aka the boy next door (who is definitely not called Laurie). All Jo wants is for someone to see the person behind the prickliness and pinafores.
But when she gets a little too real about her frustration with the family biz, Jo will have to make peace with kitsch and kin before their livelihood suffers a fate worse than Beth.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield is the novel Dickens regarded as his ‘favourite child’ and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are David’s tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy, school-friend Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature’s great comic creations.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells
On an uncharted South Pacific island, the mad genius Doctor Moreau has found refuge. It’s here, away from London and the civilized world, that the scientist can conduct his experiments on animals without condemnation. When Edward Prendick, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, washes ashore, he bears witness to Moreau’s cruel research and its bloody, inevitable unraveling.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre: Historical Fiction/Gothic
Carlota Moreau: A young woman growing up on a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of a researcher who is either a genius or a madman.
Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.
The hybrids: The fruits of the doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.
All of them live in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Dr. Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.
For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and, in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.
Fairy Tale Retellings
This list only covered a few classic novels but if you enjoy fairy tale retellings, be sure to check out my Nashville Billionaires series!
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