Best Novels Retold from a Different Character’s Point of View

fagin the thief by Allison Epstein

Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob's prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than he could possibly dream. Striking out on his own, Jacob familiarizes himself with London's highest value neighborhoods while forging his own path in the shadows. He adopts an aspiring teenage thief named Bill Sikes, whose mercurial temper poses a danger to himself and anyone foolish enough to cross him. Along the way, Jacob's found family expands to include his closest friend, Nancy, and his greatest protege, the Artful Dodger. But as Bill's ambition soars and a major robbery goes awry, Jacob is forced to decide what he really stands for-and what a life is worth.

james by Percival Everett

This retelling of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. Thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of the original text remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across unexpected death, scam artists, and treasure along the river's banks, Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light, brimming with electrifying humor and lacerating observation.

the other bennet sister by Janice Hadlow

What if Mary Bennet's life took a different path from that sad future laid out for her in "Pride and Prejudice?" What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters? Ultimately, Mary's journey is like that taken by every Austen heroine. She learns that she can only expect joy when she has thrown off the false expectations and wrong ideas that have combined to obscure her true nature and prevented her from what makes her happy. Only then does she have the clarity to recognize her ideal partner when he presents himself. Mary's destiny diverges from that of her sisters. It does not involve broad acres or landed gentry, yet like her sisters, Mary must decide what path is the truly the right one for her. Mary is (finally!) a fully rounded character--complex, conflicted, and often uncertain; but also vulnerable, supremely sympathetic, and ultimately the protagonist of an uncommonly satisfying debut novel.

fair rosaline by Natasha Solomons

The first time Romeo Montague sees young Rosaline Capulet he falls instantly in love. Rosaline, headstrong and independent, is unsure of Romeo's attentions but with her father determined that she join a convent, this handsome and charming stranger offers her the chance of a different life. Soon though, Rosaline begins to doubt all that Romeo has told her. She breaks off the match, only for Romeo's gaze to turn towards her cousin, thirteen-year-old Juliet. Gradually Rosaline realizes that it is not only Juliet's reputation at stake, but her life. With only hours remaining before she will be locked behind the nunnery walls, will Rosaline save Juliet from her Romeo? Or can this story only ever end in disaster? This spellbinding prequel to Shakespeare's best known tale shatters everything we thought we knew about the classic tragedy, exposing Romeo as a predator with a long history of pursuing much younger girls. Bold, lyrical, and chillingly relevant, this book reveals the dark subtext of the timeless story of star-crossed lovers.

wide sargasso sea by Jean Rhys

In Charlotte Bronte’s "Jane Eyre," Mr. Rochester’s plans to marry Jane are frustrated by the revelation that the long-suffering man is already married and in fact, his mad wife is locked in the attic. But what is her story? And if she is ‘mad’, how did she get that way? The wife is Antoinette Bertha Mason Rochester. Rhys is masterful showing the descent of Antionette’s life and mind as well as the gradual rise of Rochester’s contempt and control of her. The evolution of Antoinette’s voice from clarity to ‘madness’ is exquisite. Portrayed as a sensual and protected young woman sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester, Antoinette is forced to navigate a society so driven by hatred and misogyny, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.

wicked by Gregory Maguire

Years before Dorothy and Toto crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin-no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens. But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals-those creatures with voices, souls, and minds-are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals-even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.

the song of achilles by Madeline Miller

This epic retelling of the Iliad from the point of view of Patroclus, an awkward young prince who follows Achilles into war. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath. They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

mycroft holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Fresh out of Cambridge University, the young Mycroft Holmes is already making a name for himself in government, working for the Secretary of State for War. Yet this most British of civil servants has strong ties to the faraway island of Trinidad, the birthplace of his best friend, Cyrus Douglas, a man of African descent, and where his fiancee Georgiana Sutton was raised. Mycroft’s comfortable existence is overturned when Douglas receives troubling reports from home. There are rumors of mysterious disappearances, strange footprints in the sand, and spirits enticing children to their deaths, their bodies found drained of blood. Upon hearing the news, Georgiana abruptly departs for Trinidad. Near panic, Mycroft convinces Douglas that they should follow her, drawing the two men into a web of dark secrets that grows more treacherous with each step they take...

march by Geraldine Brooks

From Louisa May Alcott's classic "Little Women," Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, Mr. March, who has gone off to war leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. In Brooks's telling, Mr. March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little-known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.

longbourn by Jo Baker

In this irresistibly imagined below-stairs answer to "Pride and Prejudice," the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. This novel takes us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic-into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars-and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.

grendel by John Gardner

The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his own side of the story. This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.

lady macbeth by Ava Reid

Reid reinvents Shakespeare's classic tragedy with a captivating blend of intrigue and powerful magic. Teenaged noblewoman Roscille leaves behind everything she knows in France and enters into a precarious marriage to the much older Lord Macbeth. Her uncommon beauty and the veil she is forced to wear over her unusual eyes play into the rumors of her being a witch. Determined to carve out her own fate, she invokes an ancient custom to demand three wishes from Macbeth on their wedding night, setting the stage for a tale of cunning and resilience. Reid's richly atmospheric setting of medieval Scotland enhances the novel's brooding intensity. The plot thickens with suspense and intrigue as Roscille and Macbeth encounter three imprisoned witches who foretell his rise to kingship. Reid masterfully balances the original narrative with fresh twists, making the familiar story feel new and exciting.

julia by Sandra Newman

It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia and she knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance. But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith - when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note - a potentially suicidal gesture - she comes to realize that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world. In that one impulsive moment, Julia sets in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story, in this imaginative, feminist and brilliantly relevant to-today journey through Orwell's now-iconic dystopia.

the palace of illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A reimagining of the world-famous Indian epic, the Mahabharat-told from the point of view of an amazing woman, princess Panchaali, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father's kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their sides through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.

renfield by Barbara Hambly

The servant Renfield was the most enigmatic character to stalk in the shadows of Dracula. Now he takes center stage in an ingenious re-imagining of Bram Stoker's classic novel that explores the chilling circumstances of his insane devotion to the Vampire Prince. An inmate of Rushbrook Asylum, the obsessive Renfield's personal mission is to hunt and kill Van Helsing and his companions, setting the stage for a battle between the living and the dead that takes him from Dracula's castle to the darkness of his own madness, and the truth of where it all began. Featuring characters and situations from Dracula, yet filled with new twists, Renfield is a rich, frightening, and astonishing alternate view of Stoker's legendary work.

while beauty slept by Elizabeth Canning Blackwell

"I am not the sort of person about whom stories are told." And so begins Elise Dalriss’s Gothic retelling behind the legend of Sleeping Beauty. When she hears her great-granddaughter recount a minstrel’s tale about a beautiful princess asleep in a tower, it pushes open a door to the past. For Elise was the companion to the real princess who slumbered, and she is the only one left who knows what actually happened so many years ago. Her story unveils a labyrinth where secrets connect to an inconceivable evil. As only Elise understands all too well, the truth is no fairy tale. Historical fiction at its best - The Brothers Grimm meets The Thirteenth Tale.

Book Jacket: Ahab's Wife Or, The Star-gazer

ahab's wife or, the star-gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund

A rich epic, drawn from the classic Moby Dick, chronicles the life of Una Spenser, wife of the immortal Captain Ahab. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.

stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

Isabelle should be blissfully happy -- she's about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn't the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince's heart. She's the ugly stepsister who cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella's shoe . . . which is now filling with blood. Isabelle tried to fit in. She cut away pieces of herself in order to become pretty. Sweet. More like Cinderella. But that only made her mean, jealous, and hollow. Now she has a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl. Evoking the darker, original version of the Cinderella story, Stepsister shows us that ugly is in the eye of the beholder and uses Jennifer Donnelly's trademark wit and wisdom to send an overlooked character on a journey toward empowerment, redemption . . . and a new definition of beauty.

the penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

Penelope has been immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. She secretly unpicks her progress in order to weave it again to delay determined suitors as she hopefully waits for her husband's return. Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the mythic story - a tale of lust, greed and murder.

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