A plain, penniless orphan grows into a governess with an iron sense of her own worth, takes a post at a brooding manor, and falls for its guarded master — who is keeping something locked upstairs. Brontë wrote the first great English novel narrated by a woman who insists on being met as an equal, and it moves like a thriller: charity-school cruelty, a secret in the attic, a wedding that can't happen, and a conscience that won't bend even for love.