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Important things you need to know about the book:
Pace: The pace of The Heiress is fast.
POV: The Heiress is told from two POVs. It is told from 1st person POV through Jules and Camden’s chapters and 2nd person POV through Ruby’s letters to an unknown person. There are also snippets told from newspaper/magazine articles.
Trigger/Content Warning: The Heiress has trigger and content warnings. If any of these triggers you, I suggest not reading the book. They are:
- Murder
- Domestic Abuse
- Death
- Suicide
- Kidnapping
- Death of a parent
- Classism
- Alcoholism
- Gun Violence
- Physical Abuse
- Toxic Relationship
- Violence
- Injury/Injury Detail
- Bullying
- Grief
- Pregnancy
- Child Abuse
- Blood
- Grief
- Fire/Fire Injury
- Gaslighting
- Abandonment
- Alcohol
- Adoption
- Anxiety & Anxiety Attacks
- Boating Accident
- Electrocution
- Poisoning
Sexual Content: There is mild and implied sexual content in The Heiress.
Language: There is moderate swearing in The Heiress. There is also language that could be triggering to some people and considered offensive.
Setting: The Heiress is set in Tavistock, North Carolina. Some chapters are also in Denver, Colorado, Paris, and South Carolina.
Age Range: I recommend The Heiress to anyone over 21.
Plot Synopsis (as spoiler-free as I can get):
When his adoptive mother died, Camden McTavish became her sole heir, which angered his great-aunt, uncle, and cousins. But, to their surprise, he refused to do anything with the money, the house, or the town where he grew up. That all changes when he finds out that his uncle has died, and his cousin emails him and asks him to come home. With the support of his wife, Jules, Cam goes home. There, he is reminded of exactly why he left ten years earlier.
Jules, Cam’s wife, has her own mysterious and messy past that she must deal with. She is also determined for him to claim the inheritance he rejected. As she gets to know his cousins and great-aunt and uncovers secrets they would rather keep buried, Jules becomes even more determined for Cam to claim the inheritance. But Jules’s secrets and her past threaten her plan and her marriage.
On the other hand, Ruby remains the mysterious woman she was while alive. But her secrets threaten to be exposed by her nephew, great-nephew, and great-niece. What are these secrets, and how do they connect to Cam and Jules? Will Cam keep Ruby’s deepest secret? Will Jules’s past and secrets destroy her marriage? Will Ruby’s relatives get her inheritance?
Main Characters:
The main characters of The Heiress are Ruby, Cam, and Jules. These characters were either battling echoes of their pasts, were deeply flawed, or had secrets they could and would not let come out. They were each well-written and well-fleshed out.
My favorite character in the book was Ruby. The letters she wrote, explaining the situation around her kidnapping, the deaths of her four husbands, and her relationships with her family and Cam, were tabloid-worthy. She was smart, proved by how she made money and other things I can’t mention because of spoilers.
The secondary characters did flush out an already great storyline. I couldn’t stand them, but I could understand where they were coming from. Except for the hatred of Cam. That baffled me because he was the only true innocent (well, up until Ruby’s death) in this book.
My review:
I can’t even express how excited I was to read this book. Rachel Hawkins has been on my radar since I reviewed The Villa. So, when I saw The Heiress start showing up on blogs, I knew I wanted to read it. And when St. Martin’s Press sent me the widget, I was over the freaking moon. Now that I have read The Heiress, Rachel Hawkins has become one of my favorite authors.
There are two storylines in The Heiress. One takes place in the present day and features Cam, Jules, Cam’s family, and why Cam came back. The other storyline is letters Ruby wrote that explain everything from her kidnapping to events right before her death. Those two storylines were intertwined but kept separate (if that makes sense). They came together at the end of the book in a way that I didn’t see coming. It was a huge twist that surprised the heck out of me.
The mystery angle of the book was interesting. The author was upfront with everything that had happened (with Ruby) and what was going on (with Cam, Jules, and the family). It was unconventional, but I liked it. I saw everything with Ruby unfold as Cam dealt with the house and his treacherous relatives. A couple of twists in both storylines took me by surprise. One involved who the letters were to (and no, it is not who you think it is), and the other involved the events at the end of the book and what Cam and Jules did afterward.
I do want to mention Jules’s mystery. The author was sneaky about slipping Jules’s past and secrets into the storyline. I was surprised (but nothing like what I said in the above paragraph). But it did explain why Jules was so gung-ho about restoring the house and staying in North Carolina.
The end of The Heiress was jaw-dropping. The author revealed things that I did not see coming. Events also happened that I did not see coming. It was chaotic, and you know what, it suited the book perfectly. Of course, there was the colossal bombshell dropped about Ruby. I liked how the book ended when the dust settled from everything. The author wrapped everything up nicely.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Rachel Hawkins for allowing me to read and review this ARC of The Heiress. All opinions stated in this review are mine.