Not what I expected (didn't realize it was a thriller before I started) but oh so good!! The changing POVs seem like they would be confusing to follow but done oh so well and easy to follow. The twists!! Love them!!

I’ve loved everyone of Rachael Hawkins’ thriller books! This one did not disappoint. Not too dark and just the right touch of suspense. I’d definitely recommend this one for a great summer thriller!

Free eARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Sorry to this author- DNF this book at 20%. I tried many times to get into this book, restarted it twice and tried to pick it up many times over the last few months, but I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about the characters, the narrative was really repetitive (newspaper articles and letters and people all dumping the same info) and it seemed fairly obvious what the twist would be- I peeked at some spoilers and I was right. I think that this book and writing style appeals very much to some people and very much not to others. Unfortunately, it was not for me and I just can't force myself to make it any further through this book.

The Heiress was a thrilling keep you guessing book full of great twists you won’t see coming. Not my favorite of Rachel Hawkins books but still a good fast paced read.

LOVED this book. Like, obsessed. Ruby McTavish, etc is my new favorite character. I loved the use of epistolary pieces and because I read this immersively I really got the gist of her gumption.

I was dumbfounded st the end. I usually have some idea of what is going to happen but I never expected this one.

The audiobook, with a full cast, was perfection. Fabulous narration and characterization.

This was my first Rachel Hawkins book but you can be sure it won’t be my last.

Thanks to SMP and Macmillan Audio for the review copies.

Rachael Hawkins always gives me a story that is intriguing and truly has you guessing. The timelines are always so good and the way everything is tied together is perfect! This story truly had me glued to my seat and I did not want to put it down.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, & Macmillan for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.

Notes: My first Rachel Hawkins book, but I know it won't be my last! The pacing could have been a bit tighter at points (lost my interest and had to get it back with a couple of well placed twists!). Speaking of twists, there were a couple in here that I was 100% expecting, but at least one of the larger ones that hit me upside the head so hard when I got there! Made the end of the story so hard to put down! Excited to try The Villa and Reckless Girls soon, I've heard such good things about those.

Overall Rating: ★★★ / 3.00

Rating each element of the book out of 5★
Characters ★★★
Atmosphere ★★★
Writing ★★★
Plot ★★★
Intrigue ★★★★
Logic ★★★
Enjoyment ★★★
Pacing ★★
Dialogue ★★★

★ did not like / ★★ it was okay / ★★★ liked it / ★★★★ really liked it / ★★★★★ loved it

This is another great read from Rachel Hawkins and I was captivated from the beginning. I love that it was told from several potentially unreliable viewpoints and that the back story slowly led to the truth in the present. The characters are all interesting with intriguing backgrounds, but the matriarch Ruby and her life is truly fascinating and kept me glued to the pages. Or it would have, but I listened to the audiobook and the narrators were all so amazing that I felt like I was part of the mystery and I couldn't stop listening.

I'd put off reading this because someone I follow said it was very similar to Riley Sager's The Only One Left, only worse, and since I didn't love Sager's version I hesitated to pick this one up. I'm happy to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that review, as I loved The Heiress. This is by far my favorite of Rachel Hawkins' novels. This was a quick and captivating read that had me guessing until the very end. Each time I thought I had it figured out, she put in yet another twist that put the answers juuust out of my reach, which is exactly what I want from my mysteries. Nothing came out of left field to make me feel duped, but I was still pleasantly surprised by each reveal. There were a couple plot points that I wish she would have expanded on just a bit, which is why this isn't quite a 5-star read for me, but overall I really enjoyed and highly recommend this one!

Highly dysfunctional family - Suspense - Gothic vibes - North Carolina - So many secrets - Multiple POVs - Mystery thriller - Audiobook - Well-written characters - Wonderfully detailed

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

Money Murder and Mayhem Oh My!!!! This book was suspenseful and full of twist. The chapters are short and engaging. Loved the setting of Ashby House and the letters and news articles heightened the suspense. This one is a must read. Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

This dual timeline story is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains at a sprawling, secluded mountain estate. The present-day story features the heir’s return with his wife to the town and the dysfunctional, toxic family he left behind to put his late mother’s affairs in order and repair the house.

Interspersed throughout the story are letters written by his mother, Ruby. Widowed 4 times over, she was known as Mrs. Kill-More by the end of her life. Within the pages of the letters, she reveals the courtship, marriage, and deaths of each of her husbands, as well as multiple family secrets. It’s glamorous and dark all at the same time.

Why I Love It: Hawkins weaves a masterful story with twisted, flawed characters that I couldn’t put down. The secrets kept unfurling until the very last page. This is my favorite book of hers yet!

This dark thriller has some crazy moments! I was intrigued by Ruby’s story and thought Hawkins nailed the tension-building. I liked the alternating POVs and enjoyed the epistolary style with the mix of letters, emails & news articles. The setting also hooked me since I grew up in N.C. and have family living near the famed Biltmore House. Tavistock is a fictional town but I had no trouble picturing it and imagining what Ashby House may have looked like. The ending is over the top but it felt consistent with the rest of the drama. This was the perfect ‘beach read’ for my winter vacation!

This was a quick and easy read with lots of twists and turns, but unfortunately, it felt like I've read similar books and won't stick in my head clearly later. It's a bit forgettable although a fun ride.
What made it different were the different perspectives told through letters and different time periods.
I do like Rachel Hawkins' writing style and feel she does a good job of character development, which keeps me interested even when most of the characters are horrible people.
Since it was a quick read, I would recommend it if you are looking for a family drama thriller.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book.

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.

Did this one on audio & read - what a story!! I’ve read by this author before, and this was the first one I actually really liked. Audio was enjoyable with the different voices, and I enjoyed the mystery of the Heiress. Ruby was quite the… woman. So many layers of complexities as she revealed her past, and her intentions with her family. Lots of surprises along the way, twists & mystery, told in a series of newspaper articles, letters and multiple POV. The way it all came together was wild!

I don’t know how to go about writing this review without spoiling the best part – the secrets. There are a lot of secrets between the characters in the novel, some exposed and some not, at least so believes the keeper of all the secrets. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The unraveling of the family secrets was, for me, the most enjoyable aspect of this absorbing novel.

The novel opens with an explanation of a “changeling”. This is actually a spoiler of sorts, because the crux of the story is whether or not Ruby McTavish is truly a McTavish. At three years old, Ruby MacTavish disappeared while on a picnic in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Ashby House and the family estate was located. The story goes that Ruby’s mother thought she was with the Nanny and the Nanny thought Ruby was with her mother. The wilderness is a dangerous place and the mountain paths are steep and narrow with sheer drops that claim the lives of hikers, if the wild animals don’t get them first. The McTavish’s are the richest and most powerful family in North Carolina. No stone was left unturned in the parents’ desperate efforts to find their daughter. Several months later, a private detective claimed to have found Ruby who had been the victim of an opportune kidnapping by an itinerant worker on the estate. The worker, Darnell, claimed that he came upon the child and took her home to appease his wife who was mourning the loss of their own daughter, Dora, of the same age and appearance. The toddler, Ruby, is reunited with her family, Darnell goes to jail and later dies in a prison break. Mrs. Darnell never stopped claiming that the child was hers. By now this reader had visions of Martin Guerre or Jolie’s The Changeling. Ruby grows up to be quite a colorful character. Rich and entitled, she quarrels incessantly with her younger sister Nelle, the replacement child, who was born around the time that Ruby was found and brought back to Ashby House. Her jealous sister was mean and taunted Ruby with claims that she was not really a McTavish but rather an imposter. By the time Ruby was forty she had been widowed four times (Black Widow? Oh, yeah!). Ruby was sharp and she demonstrated financial acumen whereas Ruby’s father did not like Nelle’s husband and left his entire fortune to Ruby, including Ashby House and the Estate with the instructions that Nelle would be able to remain in Ashby House for as long as she wished. Nelle had two children. Ruby, who had none, adopted a baby boy named Camden. Camden’s cousins were as nasty to Camden as Nelle had been and continue to be toward Ruby. He suffered abuse both physical and emotional at the hands of his aunt and cousins and didn’t wear his wealth comfortably (see the hilarious letter he wrote home to Ruby, from camp, asking her not to send money because the amount was posted for everyone to see in the canteen). He couldn’t wait to get away from his claustrophobic environment and eventually left South Carolina for the West, where he met, fell in love with, and married Jules. They lived a modest life in Colorado. Even when Ruby died and left her entire fortune to Camden, he did not return to South Carolina or his home.

Camden never shared any of his secrets with Jules, other than the fact that he had inherited his mother’s fortune but wanted no part of it, nor of his petulant cousins, but Jules had other plans and believed that her husband owed nothing to his aunt and cousins. At Jules’ encouragment, Camden agrees to return to Ashley House after receiving another email from his cousin telling him that as the sole owner of the McTavish Estate and fortune, it was his duty to return home and put the degenerating property in order.

That’s as far as I will go for now because at this stage the reader will have read some of Ruby’s letters, describing her marriages and the death of her husbands. With the exception of the first, who died on their honeymoon, the other deaths are hilarious (very dark humor). Ruby’s letters also demonstrate that she was in control and controlling with regard to Camden and the rest of the family. She put a plan into action that will be surprising, her own death is surprising too, not to mention a few other deaths in the family.

Generally, I eschew epilogues as unnecessary. Unless the authors is going to blow my mind with vital new information about the characters, I think writers should tie up loose ends before the end of the novel or leave them unresolved (I’m fine with that). This epilogue was the exception….I loved it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for a copy of this book for my review. This is the third book I have read by this author and I think it was my favorite!

Wowie. This was quite the ride. I loved Jules and Cam. Ruby was a twisted lady and only played by her own rules. Which caused quite a stir in North Carolina and within her own family. Rachel Hawkins kept me guessing throughout this whole book and I can't wait to read her again.

An outstanding read with a fun, quirky and thrilling plot. Well-written too. Highly recommend. I flew through this because I couldn't put it down!

I want to say thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC with honesty.

Yes, I know - still late to the party.

Okay, I've read 2 Rachel Hawkins books so far (Reckless Girls & The Villa) and this one is probably a favorite *Reckless Girls has a slight edge cause of the craziness in it* it did not disappoint. I love the way the story was written with the multimedia in between of articles from the past to the present and the flipping of POVS. Some of the twists were unexpected (honestly, I wasn't really wanting to figure it out and wanted to go with the flow of the story) but some were a bit, too bland. I won't say too much but it made me think soap opera. And that doesn't make it bad. It's a very quick paced and fun read if your looking for a low risk thriller.

My Rating: 3.75 (rounded up to 4)