Bonus Challenge 2026 > Likes and Comments

A place to discuss what you're reading for the Bonus Challenge: Read a Victorian work where someone has a secret.

Uncle Silas for this one.

Dr. Wortle's School, I am told will fit this.

I am halfway through Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, which revolves around one big secret. And many smaller ones.

I think I will reread Jane Eyre for this prompt.

I'm going to read Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, which I think has a secret. If not, Uncle Silas will fit.

Britta wrote: "I think I will reread Jane Eyre for this prompt."

I re-read Jane Eyre earlier this year (on audiobook listening to Juliet Stevenson) and it was so good, as it is every time!

Kathy wrote: "I re-read Jane Eyre earlier this year (on audiobook listening to Juliet Stevenson) and it was so good, as it is every time!"

I recently purchased this audiobook and am very much looking forward to it. It will have to wait until next year, but Juliet Stevenson is always a treat and I am so glad she narrated a number of Victorian novels as well as all of Jane Austen's.

Lindenblatt wrote: "I recently purchased this audiobook and am very much looking forward to it"

Yes, she's so good and Jane Eyre is no exception. I've got her reading of North & South penciled in as my audiobook for November. My audiobook for Victober will be Sherlock Holmes (I share a birthday with Conan Doyle) read by Simon Vance.

I completed a re-read of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (1866) that I started in September. I listened to the audiobook read by Patience Tomlinson, which is very good. It fits this prompt because our heroine, Molly Gibson, must keep secrets of two other people, and at crucial points in the story she must act on her knowledge of these secrets.

I first read this last year and found it rather slow; at that time I liked the book, but didn't love it. On this re-read I was prepared for the slower pace and concentrated on Gaskell's character development and her complex portrayal of several characters, especially Cynthia and Squire Hamley. I enjoyed it much more on this re-read.

Wow, you re-read this book within a year despite not loving it? That's dedication! Great that you got more out of it the second time.

Lindenblatt wrote: "Wow, you re-read this book within a year despite not loving it? That's dedication! Great that you got more out of it the second time."

Thanks, it was a good experience. Because I'd heard people rave about it (like Kate Howe), I thought I was missing something the first time around. I think my expectations were too high and I wasn't prepared for the slower, low-key mood of the book. So on the re-read I had a better idea of the book and what I wanted to listen for, and it paid off. I think because it's unfinished, there's a certain lack of satisfaction with the story, too, so I've given it my own "ending" in my mind 😉

True about the end! It's particularly unsatisfying in this case because this is such a long and well-written book. I think the ending written by Gaskell would have been immensely satisfying. It's the one reason why I will probably never re-read this lovely book. But never say never 😊

Lindenblatt wrote: "True about the end! It's particularly unsatisfying in this case because this is such a long and well-written book. I think the ending written by Gaskell would have been immensely satisfying."

When listening this time, in the last chapter we see Roger when he is waving to her on his way to the train & she waves a handkerchief back. I think of that as the end....that we can imagine they are acknowledging their love in that gesture.