I really enjoyed the Southern Gothic suspense of The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins. I’ve liked her other novels, I especially loved the modern Southern Gothic feel of Hawkins’ previous novel The Wife Upstairs. This is a retelling of Jane Eyre, with North Carolina classism and a wild twist on quiet Helen Burns.
But I disliked The Villa for lots of reasons, the first one is the way my head exploded over a Mary Shelley story some how turning out boring. How is that even a thing? But mainly because I didn’t like any characters and through they were all kinda complicit in the bad things that happened to them. I felt like all the characters were idiots who wouldn’t step off the train tracks, when there was clearly a train coming.
Here in The Heiress, it was the absolute opposite, because I wanted everyone to succeed, even when these were in total opposition to each other. I wanted Cole to shake off his North Carolina roots and go do something that made him happy. I wanted Jules to manage her whole shady plan. I wanted Ruby to complete her shadowy Southern Gothic long-game revenge.
Ok, I’ve gotten ahead of myself.
Ruby’s adopted son, Camden, is the heir to all the family money, but when the novel opens, he’s rejected that and made an entirely new life across the country, barely communicating with any relatives. When Ruby dies, though, he’s pulled back to the estate that’s technically his and the drama around Ruby’s life, death, and all her money.
Camden’s adopted mother Ruby is pure Southern Gothic. She’s been widowed four times, becoming wealthier each time. But Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore was already famous (and Southern-gothic) from childhood. She was kidnapped as a child, and then returned, a fictional arc that felt a lot like the historical case of Bobby Dunbar.
Most of Ruby’s life of wealth, notoriety and secrets takes place within Ashby House, the family estate in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountains. Every inheritance drama needs the isolated old family estate, full of treasures and secrets. So good.
You guys know I love family stories, and I love thrillers with double-crossing and secrets, so of course I loved this one. I also loved how Ruby’s parts of the story had her telling all kinds of dramatic secrets while being super shady about the big one.
I enjoyed the setting and the overall vibes so much, and like I said, I wanted every major character to succeed, so it was a page-turning drama. So many over-the-top secrets (FOUR husbands all dying tragically, Ruby? That’s not subtle! ) meshed with reasonable, believable family dynamics. Even the jerks felt reasonable!
They say never judge a book by its cover but I’m so drawn in by this cover. However, the cover and the words ‘Southern Gothic suspense’ aside I’m not convinced that I’d enjoy this book. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it.
Her covers are always so cool!
You do have to be in the right mood for some of the over-the-top secrets in this one, but I can usually be convinced in a good suspense story.