The Flight of Gemma Hardy

I kept on waiting for the other shoe to drop in this modern retelling of  Jane Eyre but it never did. Margot Livesy, who I like, reset Jane Eyre in Scotland in the 60's and it is as over the top romantic as the original. She tells it completely straight faced  She is a good writer and the story is engaging but I kept on waiting for the punchline, the twist. The unfeeling aunt, the horrific boarding school, the isolated house on the moors are all there. Some things change: the mad wife in the attic has been downgraded to a shameful wartime secret, Mr.Rochester has become quite jovial, St. Clair is faulted because he is not sexy enough but I could never figure out what made this different from a Harlequin Romance written in the same time period. What was the purpose? What has she done other than write a fairly gentle story about a young woman trying to find herself? Maybe if she didn't invoke Jane Eyre I might have liked it more.