Read about the other entries on the list.Ironskin, by Tina Connolly
Connolly’s Nebula-nominated debut recasts Jane Eyre in a world where the humans and the fae have been locked in a Great War for about as long as anyone can remember. Jane Eliot (which was Jane Eyre’s pseudonym, with a slightly different spelling, when she ran away from the bigamist Rochester in the original) has a leaking fae curse that must be hidden behind a mask, lest her anger manifest in truly destructive ways. She’s governess for an enigmatic man, whose ward is fae-touched, but somehow not cursed like Anne. While the novel is not set in World War I, the characters nonetheless have the sort of fatalism and jittery superficiality I associate with the literature of the time. The exploration of repressed anger, expressed in the curse and its masks, is the coolest part of this SFFnal shift.
Ironskin is among Sylvia Spruck Wrigley's five top modern books with bad-ass fairies.
--Marshal Zeringue
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