Rachel Hawkins has written another winner. It's a slow boil (but don't worry you won't stop turning the pages!) of a novel that captivates you from page one. It's got all the juicy stuff that makes her thrillers so great. Family legacies, adoption, murder, and a black widow storyline that is just crazy. The story unfolds with a letter from someone Ruby who is the matriach of the family and she talks about her dead husbands and the her life. You have Camden who is the adopted son of Ruby who wants nothing to do with the family. His wife Jules who has an interesting past. You also have Ruby's sister Libby and her son Ben. They are all up to no good and it comes down to as the letters are revealed who is who and what is happening. You'll never guess how it all goes down and I'm usually good at figuring things out. I failed here!!! Thank you to St Martin's Press for the ARC as well as NetGalley. This is going to be the book that people will be talking about in Janaury and I'm sure it will be turned into a movie. READ IT!!!!!

✨ The Heiress ✨⁣
⁣⁣
⁣Genre- Mystery Thriller. ⁣
⁣⁣
⁣Length- 304 pages. ⁣
⁣⁣
⁣@ladyhawkins has done it again! I adored The Heiress! I read this entire book in a few hours while home alone with my three children. I was supposed to be packing for our vacation and I just ignored my chores and read this addicting book… #perfectthriller⁣
⁣⁣
⁣The Heiress is full of mysteries that fit together like a perfect puzzle. As a young child, heiress Ruby was abducted from the woods near her house and found with another family eight months later. Growing up, Ruby often felt like something wasn’t quite right about herself. Ruby’s story is exposed through a series of letters written after her death. Her adopted son, Camden, wants absolutely nothing to do with Ruby’s fortune, but returns to the family home after a family death. Add in a bunch of secrets and family distinction and you have this wickedly entertaining book! ⁣
⁣⁣
⁣Five stars! I highly recommend this thriller. It comes out on January 9, 2023. Thank you to @netgalley for my complimentary ARC.

Here I go again dipping my toes into another mystery book. The Heiress is a wild ride with a lot of pieces to the puzzle. It may be wild, but the pace of the story is very slow and suspenseful. Giving you plenty of time to be uncertain about every new discovery.

This story follows Cam and his wife Jules as Cam returns to his Appalachian home to deal with his inheritance and family. It may follow them but the main focus would be Ruby, his adoptive mother.

I liked how we discovered more and more about Ruby through her letters and newspaper clippings about her life. Each chapter jumping from Cam's to Jules' to Ruby's POV. I found myself throughout reading, thinking I figured everything out about a character before realizing that what I thought was wrong with each new perspective.

Another love for me was the location! As an Appalachian myself, I absolutely loved the setting in the mountains. The references to how old the landscape was and the Ashby house.

Definitely a good slow read mystery to start the year out with!

I have read all of Rachel Hawkins' books at this point, and while they are all good, The Heiress: A Novel is by far the best. This book takes you on a wild and interesting ride. We initially follow one of the characters, Cam, and his wife Jules, as he returns home after a long absence to deal with his inheritance and his family. The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of at least three characters, revealing the secrets of a complex family.

As the story unfolds and progresses, each unexpected revelation left me in absolute shock and awe. I constantly found myself in a state of uncertainty, thinking that I had finally unravelled the story's secrets, only to be pleasantly surprised that I was completely mistaken. Every subsequent revelation brought an even greater sense of disbelief, causing my jaw to drop in sheer astonishment and amazement.

Although the story starts with Cam, it is not solely about him. The true main character is Ruby, Cam's deceased adoptive mother. Her story, character, and life are incredibly fascinating. We not only get glimpses of how others perceived her, but we also hear her story through her own words in the form of letters. Ruby is the character who connects everyone and everything in this story, tying everything together tightly.

Rachel Hawkins has crafted The Heiress: A Novel with great care, making it impossible to put down. I want to express my gratitude to St. Martin's Press, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with advanced review copies of both the digital and audiobook versions. The book is amazing in any format, but if you truly want to be blown away, I highly recommend picking up the audiobook for its outstanding performance and production.

Rachel Hawkins has become a must read for me. I was turning the pages so fast. Rachel did an amazing job plotting the mystery. Highly recommended!

I honestly couldn’t tell you much that happened in this book because I didn’t care? It seemed all over the place. It switched POVs but also has news articles and letters in it. It’s essentially about a woman who dies rich and notorious - a former kidnapping victim and widowed multiple times. Her adoptive son and his wife must now go to her house to settle the estate. It would appear that in the minority based on the Goodreads reviews so take it for what it’s worth and try it if you’d like! I’ve loved all of Hawkin’s previous books but this one didn’t do it for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Thank you for to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was fantastic…from the very first chapter I was completely hooked! It has everything you could want. Shady characters with screwed up families. Wealth, power, family drama, and enough secrets and lies to last decades.

The story is told from different points of view and gets more twisted by the minute. I loved the letters from Ruby…slowly building more and more suspense, through backstories, before the big reveal. But, there’s more going on than what you may think and bam…out of nowhere another surprise. I think it might just be the plot twist of the year!

So good…run to pick this one up! You won’t regret it. Hits shelves January 9th.

5/5⭐️

As much as I love thrillers, I couldn’t get into this one and had to DNF. It was m first book by Rachel Hawkins but I have put her backlist on my TBR as I have heard nothing but great things about the author.
Thank you to St Martin’s Press for the advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first I have read of Rachel Hawkins' books, but it won't be the last! I have seen her books recommended and heard the buzz so was interested in reading her newest. This one was easy for me to visualize the setting, having been to that part of the country and rich people problem books are always fun. She took us through the story with news stories, letters, and chapters told from the two main character POVs that propelled the story forward. It was an easy and fast read, though predictable at times. I would definitely read more of hers in the future.

It's safe to say this will be a top read of 2024 for me! This book was FLIPPING FANTASTIC! Literal jaw dropping moments, stellar writing, an exceptional plot, and such fun and nasty characters that I absolutely loved to hate. This book truly had it all!

I listened to this novel on audio and it was exceptional. There were multiple narrators in the novel and the audio did a great job using several people to keep them separate. I loved the different uses of media - letters, newspaper clippings, and multiple narrators on top of all that. Sometimes this can feel like too much, but wow, it worked perfectly for The Heiress. The story unfolded in such a fun and unique way and I was completely enthralled.

Hawkins slammed us with not one, not two, but MANY surprises - most of which weren't anywhere near my radar! As a thriller lover, it's easy to read the same plot lines, twists, and hooks over and over again. Hawkins made sure she shattered those well-loved tropes and brought us something fresh and utterly fantastic.

Ruby is one of my favorite characters from a novel in a long time. She will absolutely stick with me. Her ruthlessness, cunning wit, and her entire backstory was just perfection.

I can't say I've ever read a book like this and weeks later, it's still sticking with me. It's one I'll be recommending over and over!

Thank you to MacMillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the copy. Get this book NOW!!!

QUICK THOUGHTS: I loved! It’s quick, somehow fast paced & slow burn, opulent, twisty, and super suspenseful

IF YOU LIKE: The Villa, The Only One Left, Evelyn Hugo vibes, less scary thrillers, suspense
----
I’ve read a most of Rachel Hawkins recent thrillers and in my opinion this is her best yet! I loved how the two main plots of the story were unraveled together. We learn all about Ruby’s crazy history through letters she’s written just days before her death, while at the same time trying to figure out the family dynamic and all of their intentions & motives.

While my typical preferred thriller is fast paced, action packed, and twisty turny… Rachel Hawkins doesn’t really do that, and for whatever reason it still works for me! They’re definitely more slow burn suspense, but she’s sooo good at sprinkling in little intense moments that make you go “what the F*CK, this is going to get crazy.” AND IT DOES!

Oh. My. Goodness. This book. I could not put it down. This was my first Rachel Hawkins book, but certainly won't be my last.

I loved everything from this one...the story, the characters, the format...it was all perfect. I loved how the author interspersed news articles and Ruby's letters with the current day timeline. It was a really interesting way to break up the story a little and provide necessary background information.

I enjoyed the overall plotline of the prodigal son returning to the family but with some murderous twists. From the moment I opened the book, I was gripped and wanted to know what was going to happen. The twists weren't overly surprising to me, but I enjoyed them anyway.

I felt the characters were also all well written. I kept picturing Liddy as Alexis from Schitt's Creek, though I'm not sure that's fair to Alexis as Libby, Ben, and Nelle were literally the worst. The family dynamics in this story were over-the-top, and I loved it. I really appreciated that Ruby was included as a character we got to know even though she died prior to the start of the book.

Overall, this book felt a little like a cross between Evelyn Hugo and The Only One Left, which seems like a weird way to describe this book, but it totally worked for me.

First, thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC in exchange for a review. All thoughts are my own.

Synopsis in my own words: Jules married Camden a decade ago and they live happily together in Colorado until one day Camden’s past comes back to shake their lives up. He was adopted by millionaire Ruby McTavish, a notorious heiress to one of the largest fortunes in North Carolina. Camden is named as Ruby’s heir and now that she’s gone, the money and estate has to go somewhere. However, the money comes with a lot of strings so even though it’s life-changing, it might not be exactly worth it. Jules and Camden decide to give his Knives Out-like family another chance and head to North Carolina to see what kind of mess Ruby has left behind for them to clean up.

That’s all I want to say without revealing more. This was a very solid addition to Rachel Hawkins’ annual slow burn mystery/thriller collection. It’s told in a few POVs and fits right in with her previous work, so if you like The Wife Upstairs, The Villa, and Reckless Girls, then I’m pretty confident you’ll enjoy this one too. However, it does follow the lines of the slow burn category, emphasis on the slow. I had a few theories pop up while reading this and most of them came to fruition, so I wouldn’t necessarily say this was twisty or shocking. That added to the “slow” part of my analysis just because if you followed along with context clues and foreshadowing, then you could predict what was going to happen and you just have to chug along with the text for it to be revealed that you’re correct.

I did thoroughly enjoy Ruby’s POV which was told in letters, revealing the truths of her scandalous life. Seeing how she was dead the entire book, she was a great character. Her revelations and explanations were compelling and kept me turning the pages.

I’ll always give props to Rachel Hawkins’ writing style. Despite some of her thrillers not being my all-time fave (Reckless Girls wasn’t the biggest hit for me), I enjoy the depth she gives to each character and the way she comes full circle. Her endings, while sometimes ambiguous and vague, don’t leave me feeling cheated. Even though there’s closure, there’s always something to think about as you close the book, which I appreciate. If I were to rank these style books, I would say: 1. The Wife Upstairs 2. The Villa 3. The Heiress 4. Reckless Girls

Read this if you like:
-Knives Out
-Haunted Mansion lore
-southern wealth drama
I put this at a 3.5/5 stars for keeping me invested and wanting to know the ending but also predicting a lot of the “big twists.”

**spoiler starts here
I truly thought this book was building up to Jules killing Camden. She was power-hungry while Cam wanted to throw away their fortune. From the very beginning it was clear she had a plan just from her narration style of speaking directly to the audience, the sympathetic pleas of “you have to see why I did what I did.” I almost think it would’ve been more interesting for the POVs to switch between Cam and Ruby’s letters and then have a long Jules chapter at the end like “you didn’t really think that was the whole story, did you?” and then explain her actions the whole way as opposed to it being very visible from the start. However, like I said earlier, I love an ambiguous conclusion and it truly feels like killing Cam is still an option if he gets in her way of the life she wants.

I enjoyed that Ruby wasn’t actually writing to Cam. That was a surprise I didn’t see coming. I knew Jules was someone more than who she appeared to be and had a feeling she was a Darnell descendant that felt robbed, but I loved that she and Ruby were the ones that connected as opposed to Cam.

I think I've realized that anything Rachel Hawkins writes, I'm going to really enjoy. She has a way of writing thrillers that are just so easy to binge read and get completely lost in, and The Heiress was no different! I loved this story and ended up devouring it in like 24 hours because I couldn't put it down. It's dramatic and fun and kept me entertained the entire time.

The Heiress was an interesting and captivating read for people who love a good mystery. Set in North Carolina, the story follows Jules as she accompanies her husband, Cam, back to his childhood home which he inherited after the death of his adoptive mother, notorious heiress Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore. Told through both Cam and Jules in the present day, as well as through flashbacks from Ruby in the form of letters, the reading experience is built throughout the story to bring you to a conclusion you don’t see coming.

I really enjoyed this read! While not necessarily a groundbreaking story, it was something that captured and held my attention the duration of the story. I found myself going between liking Ruby, Jules, and Cam, to disliking them, to liking them again. Additionally, I was super invested in figuring out where the story was going to go.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the mountains, and I found the small town of Tavistock and Ashby house enthralling locations for the story, and was definitely part of the appeal for me. For anyone who loves a good gothic mystery with suspense, murder, and a little bit of wtf is going on, set in the mountains, I think this is an excellent read and definitely worth picking up!

I've said it once and I'll say it again: I love a family drama. Especially ones that come with family fortunes. This particular one also poses a question of ethics: if you knew your spouse was entitled to a huge family fortune, but wanted nothing to do with it, what would you do? Would you accept it, or would you try to change their mind?

I really don't know what I would do. Money solves a lot of problems, don't get me wrong, but is it worth your integrity?

I was hooked on this book from the first chapter. We get two POVs, plus a series of letters, and they take you on a journey of twists and turns the entire time. I was shocked at some of them, and nodding my head along with others, which IMO makes for a great read. I like figuring things out on my own because it shows I'm completely invested, but I also love those jaw-dropping chapters, and this one certainly had a couple of those!

This is a fast-paced thriller with lots of shady characters, and will make you stop and think to yourself, "What would I do in this situation?" Thank you St. Martin's Press for gifting me this ARC of THE HEIRESS! I loved it.

Though this is not a sequel in any way to The Villa, it was reading that book which made me so incredibly eager to pick up another work by Rachel Hawkins.

Within the pages of The Heiress, the reader is presented with multiple people and perspectives, though intriguing, did get a bit confusing at times. However, the story was riveting from start to finish. From the disappearance and reappearance of a young child, murder, mystery, marriages, and so much more. The web of intrigue Ms. Hawkins weaves, keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and looking forward to the next revealed piece of information.

The McTavish family is rich and always gets their way. Ruby, the oldest daughter, is The Heiress and throughout these pages, we are presented letters to an anonymous recipient about all the tragedies and mysteries surrounding her life. Camden is Ruby’s only child. Though he is adopted, he is Ruby’s sole heir to the McTavish fortune, which he doesn’t want.

After Camden’s uncle passes away, he and his wife, Jules, are drawn out to the McTavish estate to settle some family drama and back into complicated questions about what really happened.

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy to review. This is likely my favorite Rachel Hawkins yet. While the twists were not as surprising or unpredictable as I prefer in thrillers I read, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride this book took me on. The whole story you never know who to believe, but most of the characters weren’t completely unlikeable. I appreciated that the chapters alternated between Jules and Camden’s present day perspectives as well as letters from Ruby. I liked how the ending played out and wrapped things together. 4.5 stars

I stumbled upon Rachel Hawkins a few years ago when I was reviewing Goodreads Choice Award winners, and I read several of her novels so I could be ready for her 2024 release, The Heiress. Set in two time periods, we learn what happened to a family where murder played centerstage nearly 60 years ago. As we come to understand who really died, who really felt the need to kill, and where some of the lucky survivors settled, it was a twisty little puzzle. Enjoyed the characters a lot, tho I did wonder if much of it was all dazzle left to keep us confused and not so much questioning a few gaps or holes. I usually suspend some level of disbelief but this has me hanging upside down! Worth the read, and I'll definitely grab the next one when it releases.

This book seemed so ordinary until it wasn’t. Once the secrets begin spilling out, you realize how convoluted the storyline is. Ruby is twisted and rotten to her core. This was a fast-paced and easy read, exploring the depths of what people with money can get away with. An enjoyable read.