Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn (38)
Hm. This one was fine-- but it was SO much a retelling of Jane Eyre, I wondered why I didn't just go read the original. Bridget Jones as an update of Pride and Prejudice was a masterpiece of judicious retelling and referential humor, and remained largely original. As for Shinn-- well, she didn't abominate Jane Eyre by abolishing the spirit of it-- quite the contrary. It just wasn't a different book at all. And a lot of the things that were wonderful about Jane were excised in Jenna because of the (altogether too) few things that Shinn changed... no horrors of the Red Room, no poetical names that resonated with the personalities of the characters.
Maybe it's because I've written so many papers on the Brontes that makes me overly critical.
Maybe it's because it wasn't all that original of an update.
Kushiel's Chosen by Carey (37) as well.
I'm not sure... but is there ever a second book in a series that's as good as the first? Let me adjust the criteria a smidge-- sometimes second books are just as good or better, but in all the cases I can think of, it turns out the author wrote the whole trilogy or what have you as some giant magnus opus, which was chopped up to better suit publication. Tamora Pierce, Lois McMaster Bujold and Anne Bishop both spring to mind (though I'm not sure that Bishop's second book was better than the first, either, but Barrayar was certainly as good if not better than Shards of Honor...)
Well... anyway. It was plenty good enough, it just wasn't grand.