The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is an intense, intriguing novel that you don’t want to miss. Ruby McTavish, the central character of The Heiress has been dead for ten years. She was not only the richest woman in North Carolina, but also the most notorious one. Kidnapped when she was three years old, Ruby was miraculously returned to her parents several months later. A sole heir to her father’s business empire, Ruby managed her great fortune from Ashby House, the family’s immense mansion in the woods near Tavistock, a small town in the Blue Ridge mountains region. Ruby was married four times; all her husbands met untimely deaths by accidents, or misfortunes.
After the death of her fourth husband Ruby adopted an orphan boy named Camden and designated him her sole heir to the great indignation of her younger sister Nell. Nell and her family always considered themselves the “true McTavishes.” Even though after Ruby’s death the Ashby house legally belongs to Cam, the elderly Nell and her adult grandchildren Ben and Libby insist on residing there.
Cam left Ashby after Ruby’s death, planning to never return to the house in which members of the McTavish clan always strived to make him feel an interloper who stole their rightful inheritance.
During his first year at the university in California, Cam met and fell in love with Jules, a girl from a poor family who supported herself by working at the university pub. Now married for ten years, they reside in a small town in Colorado where Cam teaches English and Jules works at a historical house nearby. They live in a small, rented house even though Cam could afford a larger, more comfortable house with just a small fraction of his inheritance. An unexpected message from Cousin Ben about many repairs needed in the Ashby house compels Cam to return to North Carolina for a few weeks. Ten years of Cam’s absence from Ashby, though, have not mellowed Nell or her grandchildren who still endeavor to make Cam’s every moment as uncomfortable as ever.
As the story unfolds, we realize that each character has his or her own hidden agenda. Cam wants nothing more than to fix the Ashby house and go back to his comfortable teaching life in Colorado. While Jules seems to support Cam’s wish to leave Ashby behind, she secretly dreams about becoming the mistress of a magnificent mansion, freely roaming its stately rooms, and not having to worry about money or pesky relatives. However, Cam’s cousin Ben is secretly planning a nasty “surprise” intended to displace Cam as an heir.
The narrative alternates between Cam, Jules, and Ruby. In spite of Ruby’s being dead for ten years, her voice comes out loud and clear through hidden letters that were written just before she was found dead in her bed. We assume that the letters were addressed to Cam. Or were they?
In her letters Ruby pledges to tell truth about her life and her four unfortunate husbands: a violent heir to a tobacco fortune; a “happy go lucky” drug addict; a “loving” husband who watched her every move; and her last husband, a British portrait painter who “knew too much.”
As Ruby described real circumstances and reasons for each of her husbands’ untimely demise, the author “inserted” old newspaper clippings, books, and stories from the past to further define the characters and tell their real stories.
The rapidly unfolding plot of this fast moving, enthralling novel reveals surprising twists and turns in every chapter, finally arriving at a completely unexpected finale. The Heiress is a smart story with dark humor that transports the reader inside the tragic lives of a rich and privileged family who live by their own rules, secure in the knowledge that their wealth always will protect them. This reader couldn’t put it down.
