NYT bestselling author Rachel Hawkins has a bingeable new thriller coming soon!
have enjoyed every Rachel Hawkins book I have read, but this is my new favorite! I binged it!
Ruby MacTavish was glamorous and infamous. The wealthiest woman in North Carolina, she was kidnapped as a child and recovered months later, widowed four times under odd circumstances, causing the gossip mill to nickname her "Mrs. Kill-more." She lived in stately Ashby House and owned most of the nearby town. Upon her death a decade ago, it all went to her adopted son, Camden, even though he had walked away from the family and money. After another death in the family necessitates some legal and financial matters be handled, Cam returns with his wife to face his resentful and plotting extended family.
Told in a multiple POV format, through letters, news stories, and narratives, the family drama you think you know at the start is wild enough. But once all the secrets, lies, and dysfunction start coming to light, it's one twist after another! Hawkins does a great job pacing this and building suspense by utilizing this mixed-media format to amp up the drama compellingly. I really enjoyed how this was written.
There are gothic vibes as isolated Ashby House looms large and sets a mood. It is inhabited by backstabbing, messy, greedy characters, all of whom are vivid and memorable. I was glued to the page to see what they would do next! We get to know Ruby through her old letters, where she reveals her secrets and scandals to the recipient. She is a fantastic character, looming larger-than-life over Ashby House and its inhabitants even a decade after her death. I don't want to say much more for fear of spoilers, but I highly recommend this addictive read. It's escapist and wildly entertaining!
Pub day is January 9, 2024
Thank you to @stmartinspress for the free book! #smpinfluencer
My steep was Hibiscus Holiday from Club Magic Hour a holiday herbal with hibiscus, rosehips, apple, cardamom, cloves, star anise, orange, vanilla, and cinnamon.
PUBLISHER'S SYNOPSIS:
A January Indie Next Pick
New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins returns with a twisted new gothic suspense about an infamous heiress and the complicated inheritance she left behind.
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.
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