The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins #bookreview #thriller

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Title: The Heiress

Author:  Rachel Hawkins

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Date: Jan 9, 2024

Page Count:  281

My rating: 4 1/2 stars

About the book:

THERE’S NOTHING AS GOOD AS THE RICH GONE BAD.

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, his uncle’s death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable.

And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is a domestic thriller novel with a gothic setting to it. The story in The Heiress is one that is told with three distinctive points of view to it with two being the main couple but the third taking place in the past through the letters left behind by the matriarch who has passed.

Camden is the adoptive son of the somewhat infamous Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore. Ruby lived a long life that many whisper rumors about having married four times and accumulating a fortune in the nine-figure range making her North Carolina’s richest woman but one locals refer to as Mrs. Killmore wondering about her past husbands.

When Ruby did pass away Camden made it no secret he wanted nothing to do with the ancestral home, Ashby House, or the fortune that came with it. Camden moved away and married his wife, Jules, and became an English teacher across the country. Now ten years later however Camden’s remaining relatives have contacted him and called him home to Ashby House to sort out things after his uncle’s death.

Rachel Hawkins is an author that I’ve read several of her thriller novels in the past and always looked forward to returning to again and again. The Heiress thankfully was far from a disappointment pulling me right into the story and not letting go until the very last page. There are plenty of twists and turns that I have come to expect in this story and I found myself just as engaged with the past timeline as the present leaving me rating this one at four and a half stars when I finished reading.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama, and is currently at work on the third book in the Hex Hall series. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree….