Rachel Hawkins has done it again. With The Heiress she has given her readers a delectable tale of secrets, deceptions, greed, murder, alienation, compelling characters, non-stop twists that you won’t see coming and so much more. This is the tale of Ruby McTavish, deceased for ten years, but oddly, still in control of those whose lives she touched either directly or indirectly.

Deftly weaving past with present, the chapters are narrated by Ruby(via previously written letters) as well as her adopted son Camden and his wife Jules - creating a mesmerizing tour de force of gothic atmosphere that will draw you in from the very first sentence and keep you reading long after your weary body has indicated that you need some sleep.

For those literary gourmets who have not previously enjoyed the suspenseful psychological treats served up by Rachel Hawkins, The Heiress is a banquet for your grey cells that you won’t want to pass up.

Thoughts:
Ruby has lived an eventful and interesting life. As a little girl she was kidnapped then months later found. She is one of the most wealthiest women that lives in a big estate
Called The Ashby House. After her death she left everything to her adopted son Camden who wants nothing to do with this dysfunctional family and moves away.
But ten years later he’s called back to The Ashby House and family secrets start coming out. This is a mystery that you think you know where it’s going but nope you’re wrong. I’ve read most of Rachel Hawkins books and this one is at the top.
Thank you @netgalley

I have yet to be disappointed by a book from this author! When Netgalley reached out to offer me a copy, I jumped at the chance to read her latest.

The Heiress brings together a family full of mortally grey characters who you just love to hate. Everyone is out for themselves and their pursuit of riches is absolutely ruthless. Throw in short chapters, perfect cliff hangers to keep you turning pages and a seriously great twist and you have another solid thriller from Rachel Hawkins. Loved it!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Rachel Hawkins for this free ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

I cannot get enough of Rachel Hawkins and her perfectly characterized novels 🤌🏼 this was another near perfect read - funny, weirdly sweet, twisty, and of course, jaw dropping. I loved Ruby so much - she’s creepy, girly and somehow relatable even amongst her chaos. This is a must read. At 256 pages, it’s short, sweet and packs a punch.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC! I’m a big fan of Rachel’s thrillers and The Heiress might be my new favorite by her. This was a twisty and fast paced read that I couldn’t put down! I loved the historical fiction feel and the setting in NC (where I live!).

There were some great plot twists and a few I didn’t see coming at all! I also loved the use of letters and newspapers articles throughout the book.

The Heiress
By Rachel Hawkins

This is an interesting book. The heiress of the title is one Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, very rich, many times married…and maybe not herself!!

This story involves the McTavish clan: Ruby, her sister Nelle, Nelle's grandkids, Ben and Libby, and Ruby's adopted son, Camden. This would be enough of a saga, but wait! There's more. The story includes a child kidnapping; a child returned by the Darnell family (a whole other story); various deaths under questionable circumstances; and Camden's wife, Jules, who also has some mysterious provenance.

This is a cleverly done story. I would be interested to see how Ms. Hawkins manages to top this one!

🔀 Twisty
💸 extreme wealth
👩‍👦Multi-generational family drama

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5/5 stars for @ladyhawkins upcoming novel! Thank you @netgalley for an ARC of this great book.

Camden McTavish, adopted son of notorious Ruby McTavish, famous for her disappearance in toddlerhood and again in the wake of four dead husbands in adulthood, returns to his family estate with his wife Jules to once and for all deal with his inheritance. Nobody is who you think they are in this fast paced, twisty suspense novel.

🔀 Just when you think you have things figured out, Hawkins throws another curve ball

💸 I personally enjoy the extreme wealth trope, and with the fast paced nature and frequent twists, it does not feel stale here

👩‍👦 There are multiple perspectives, Camden and Jules in the present and Ruby’s letters that take us through past events. I love the back and forth and that none of them are reliable narrators.

This was a fun one! Absolutely worth the read!

Loved this book, I think my favorite I’ve read this year! I mainly read thrillers and sometimes they can all have a familiar vibe. I didn’t feel this way with this book. Multiple viewpoints made the book flow in a way where I was still wondering what happened but also getting answers to my questions all throughout. This book makes me want to visit a house like Ashby. Also bonus points for the ending, loved it.

Another twisty novel from Rachel Hawkins! The Heiress is strong in character flaws, secrets, and suspense.

While some things were predictable, getting to the reveal was a fun ride. This story is told in alternating POVs and also includes some other fun writings in letters and articles.

My only small complaint, and this is totally personal preference because character driven stories aren’t my favorite, is that in the middle this started to slow a bit in pace and I felt like nothing was happening. That did quickly change at the end though.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, the author and NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book.

Camden ran far away from his inheritance and the family home of his adopted mother, leaving North Carolina for California. He is married, living in Colorado, and in love with his wife. He won't look back. Until his family asks him to come home to sort things out, his wife encourages him to return for closure. What could go wrong?

This is a crazy book full of unlikeable characters and lots of twists. I think it's my favorite book that Rachel Hawkins has written to date. You should read this one.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is just the read I needed, one that would grab me in the first chapter and keep me flipping pages to the very end.

Ruby McTavish is one complicated character. The action moves around throughout the narrative, but it always seems to circle back to her. Welcome to Ashby House, her 15-bedroom mansion. The writing and descriptions are superb; and the tension builds as we creep along through the hallways of this creepy old manor house. There’s even a portrait that looms down at visitors. The author doesn’t say this, but I just know that the eyes move and follow visitors as they walk.

This book has the feel of a gothic mystery with whispers and rumors, scheming and lying. Don’t miss this one.

PUBLICATION DAY: January 9, 2024

A family inheritance? Or a curse? The MacTavish’s are rich - and twisted. So when adopted son Camden, heir to the entire fortune, steps away to live a normal life, who could blame him? But with millions hanging in the balance, and a sense of familial duty at work, Cam and his wife Jules return to his childhood home. But what awaits them? And what will the letters from Ruby reveal??

PROS and CONS:
This is a great thriller - I loved the format of the newspaper articles and letters from Ruby to add details to the plot. Cam and Jules were two believable characters who I was cheering for. A couple of twists along the way made for interesting reading. Only downfall were one dimensional villains - everyone has a redeeming quality don’t they??? Otherwise very good!!

READ IT?
If you’re in the mood for a classic thriller, this one will not disappoint!

4 Stars

Woof this one was good!! I've always enjoyed Rachel Hawkins books, and this might be the best one I've read. I loved the way it was told from both characters perspectives mixed with mysterious notes from the mysterious Ruby. The twist (I won't mention what) was great - I saw it coming but not until almost the reveal! This was a great read and fully recommend for suspense/thriller fans. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

What more can you ask for? Gothic setting, unpredictable matriarch, unassuming heir, duplicitous family, historical references. I’ve read Rachel Hawkins’ prior books and this one is the best! Main characters had multi-layered backgrounds revealed slowly throughout the book and adding to the conundrum of the story.

The book is connected through letters written by the late matriarch, and told through the viewpoints of her heir and his wife. The matriarch’s life story is enthralling and contrasts sharply with her heir. The other family members plot to take down the heir and inherit the estate and wealth for themselves (the usual course of events), but the intricacies of the life of the matriarch and her heir make this book unique.

I could not put this down and highly recommend The Heiress.

This romantic Gothic suspense novel is told from two points of view (or maybe three). Jules tells about meeting and falling in love with Camden at a college bar in California. They have a nice life together for ten years. He's teaching English at a boys' school in Colorado and she's working at a living history museum. But things change when Cam gets an email from a cousin which pulls him back into the life he ran away from when he was twenty.

Camden has been successfully ignoring his past and his life with the infamous Ruby McTavish - a woman gone missing as a three-year-old and recovered some months later who grew up married four times, survived the deaths of her husbands, and inherited a massive fortune and a house filled with resentful relatives.

Cam was her adopted son and never accepted as a real member of the McTavish family. He was casually bullied by his cousin Ben throughout his childhood and roundly ignored by his mother's sister Nelle. Tensions rise after Ruby commits suicide leaving Cam the only heir to her massive fortune causing him to flee to California.

Now, at Jules' urging, Cam and Jules are going back to North Carolina to deal with family and the house Cam owns. But both Cam and Jules are dealing with secrets that they have never shared with each other. Cam wants to clear things up and leave. But Jules wants to stay and make a life in the beautiful house.

Additions of letters that Ruby wrote to someone telling her story which does include murdering her husbands for various reasons and using various means adds to the Gothic atmosphere of this contemporary story.

I enjoyed all the twists and turns of the plot and the slow reveal of the various secrets held by the main characters.

Oh I think this has to be my favorite of Rachel Hawkins I’ve read since The Wife Upstairs.

In The Heiress Ruby McTavish is a socialite and a lumber empire heiress. She is one of the richest people in North Carolina, but after her death, she leaves her fortune and estate, to her adoptive son Camden. And only Camden.

Ruby became famous after being kidnapped as a child, but became even more famous after marrying several husbands in a row, all apparently dying from mysterious circumstances.

Camden chooses to live a life away from his family, not touching a single dollar of his fortune. modestly with his wife Jules, teaching.

The gothic tone, the family's twists and turns, and the characterization were all phenomenal. Told in a 3 person POV, you really get into their minds.

5/5! Thanks St. Martin's Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC!

This thriller explores the complexity of a dysfunctional family full of secrets.

Cam inherited his adopted mother, Ruby’s estate when she passed away and gave it up.  When his uncle passes away he and his wife are asked to return to confront the family secrets he left behind.

Told in three POVs, Ruby shared through letters, her adopted son Cam, and Cam’s wife, Jules.  I found myself completely enraptured in learning about Ruby. There was so much more to Ruby than being one of the wealthiest women in North Carolina.  Ruby’s life is full of secrets, but she’s not the only one.   Ruby's story reminded me of Evelyn Hugo, if Evelyn Hugo was widowed four times, surrounded by power and dysfunction, and lived in a gothic-style mansion.

It took me a few chapters to get a feel of the story, but once the family drama started I was completely addicted.  The weaving of the three POVs and build-up of the story to the cleaver ending was seamless.

Read this if you enjoy dysfunctional families, dark family secrets, and clever plot twists.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is a dark, gothic like mystery between very rich people. When Ruby McTavish is a toddler, she is kidnapped, nothing is ever the same. The McTavish family has deep roots in their town, their ancestors created the town years before, and their money continues to run it, as they see fit. Fast forward to Ruby as an adult, she has four dead husbands, an adopted son, despicable relatives, oh and she’s dead too.

Ruby’s son, Camden, has been requested back to Ashby House, the mansion left to him by his mother as well as all the family money, which he refuses to touch. His aunt, and 2 cousins still live there. When his uncle passes away, Camden returns with his wife, Jules, to see what needs to be done to fix up the mansion that is falling apart, but for Camden going back isn’t easy. He doesn’t have any good memories of growing up there. But Jules assures him everything will be fine, and wonders why they can’t live in the house with the money left to him. Meanwhile, Ruby’s letters explain her past, like a voice from the grave, adding to the mystery of the family.

I need to say I really like Rachel Hawkins books, this one wasn’t a favorite of mine. It was a little slow for the first half, then it seemed every twist and turn was mashed together at the end. Not everything was explained, so there were a lot of loose ends. I felt the end was predictable as well.

I would like to thank Netgalley, St Martin’s Press, and Rachel Hawkins for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Don’t let this book stop you from reading the other books by Rachel Hawkins, this may have been a one off.

A true gothic suspense story lies between the cover of this book! An inheritance that is designed to pull the strings of the remaining family members and cause jealousy, anger, and revenge. When Ruby McTavish dies and lives the ancestral home and millions of dollars to her adopted son, Camden McTavish, he leaves the home amid questions surrounding her death, and his desire to have nothing to do with the inheritance. The story wraps us through the lavish lifestyle of the McTavish family, and the infamous stories that surround her. Were the deaths of four husbands all accidental? We learn about Ruby's life, and the truth to those rumors, by letters that she had left behind. As Cam and his wife, Jules, return to Ashby House to settle some estate issues, the welcome he receives is less than joyous and the drama begins. The family secrets that come to light as the battle over the estate pits each person against another leads to a suspenseful and twisting story that has a conclusion that will have the reader flabbergasted. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this advance reader copy. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #NetGalley #TheHeiress

Wow! I absolutely loved this novel by Rachel Hawkins. The drama of a wealthy southern family, kidnapping of a young child and the ruthless climb to be the rightful heir. I thought the characters were well developed and the descriptions of the small mountain town just made this a very enjoyable read. Thanks to #Netgalley for this advanced copy.