I enjoyed this book immensely. Though I did figure out some of it, there was surprising turns too. It's a story about greed and evil. The things people do and say to justify the wrong they commit. It does show that people can be complex creatures, not all bad or all good. Rachel Hawkins as a way of telling a story. This one will keep you enthralled from the first page.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rachel Hawkins and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

“The Heiress” by Rachel Hawkins is another captivating read from this author. Camden McTavish, feeling disconnected from the rest of the McTavish family, decides to leave North Carolina and start anew. However, circumstances bring him and his wife, Jules, back to Ashby House after the death of his mother, Ruby, to settle the estate with the rest of the McTavish family.

The narrative primarily unfolds through the perspectives of Camden and Jules, supplemented by letters resembling diary entries from Ruby, adding depth to the mystery. The story is compelling, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking a good mystery/thriller. Each character in the story harbors secrets, and just when you think there can’t be another secret, another one is revealed.

I want to express my gratitude to St. Martin's Press, Rachel Hawkins, and NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this ARC and share my honest review.

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this opportunity to read The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins.

The Heiress is clearly a 5 ⭐️ book ! In my opinion this is Rachel Hawkin’s best book to date. I enjoyed The Villa and Reckless girls but The Heiress was a step above because it was filled with surprises and twists from start to finish.

I was intrigued with the mystery and lore about Ruby McTavish, the Heiress. This Heiress’s trail of dead husbands and her nickname “Mrs. Kill-more” makes her a very provocative character that you’ve just got to learn more about. Ruby’s story is told through her letters, interspersed between POV chapters from Camden, Ruby’s son and Jules, his wife.

With SO much bad blood among the McTavish family and the infamous Ashby House, Camden left without a look back and stayed away for 10 years. Why? What happened to make him leave and stay away and what has brought Camden back to Ashby House now? So many secrets are revealed with each chapter, making this a truly hard to put down story.

Overall The Heiress was a very entertaining read. There were many surprises and twists along the way, that I did not see coming. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing what Rachel Hawkins brings us next.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins tells the story of the wealthiest woman in North Carolina, Ruby McTavish. Ruby has a string of dead husbands and she is the subject of many rumors. After Ruby passes away, her adopted son, Camden is the recipient of her large fortune, but strangely wants nothing to do with her money or the McTavish family. Camden marries a woman named Jules and lives a low-key normal life until he is pulled back into his family after the death of his uncle.

The Heiress is a tangled web of family secrets told through multiple viewpoints and letters. Even though I took a break reading this book about halfway through, I was easily able to immerse myself again in the story and the unique plot line. Hawkins once again takes readers into a twisted family drama full of suspense. I have really enjoyed Hawkins’ writing over the past few years and I look forward to her next novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

3 Stars
The Heiress written by Rachel Hawkins
Camden is the adopted son of Ruby McTavish and he inherited millions after her death. But he's living across the country with his wife, Jules and wants nothing to do with the McTavishes and the money. After a decade of no communication, he returns to North Carolina and the secrets starts to unfold.

This is a southern gothic story set in Ashby House, the isolated family estate in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountain nestled outside of a small town. Told in alternative POVs between Ruby, Camden and his wife Jules. Ruby's life is the center of the story, she was kidnapped at age 2, widowed 4 times and extremely wealthy.

I thought it was a good story but I didn't feel much suspense throughout the book. I felt it was just being told to me without me really getting to guess. I liked the idea of the letters that Ruby wrote but it was kind of anticlimactic and even with the twists in the plot, the delivery lacked excitement. The ending was a bit over the top.

Overall, it was interesting. I wasn't bored but felt it could have more. I also did not like two of the main characters, Ruby and Jules. I thought they were annoying, immature and childish. I rather have a villain I can truly hate or at least admire.

When they say ‘money is the root of all evil,’ they mean it. When a complicated inheritance is left for a beyond wealthy family, true feelings come out and sometimes that results in the loss of a family member.

3.5 stars. Cam and Jules move back to North Carolina as he is the sole inheritor of his family’s estate; but everybody in this family has secrets, including Cam and Jules.
This was my favorite of Hawkins’ books and I enjoyed the twisty nature of the plot. The original driver of the story, the disappearance of young Ruby was a bit of a stretch to me, but everything falls together fairly well and not in a totally contrived way. This was a great popcorn thriller and I look forward to seeing what Hawkins does next.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this ARC!

This story had several elements that I love in a suspense story - a decrepit estate in a small town, a cast of suspicious characters and an untimely death. I enjoyed this story, about a man returning to his dysfunctional family with his wife, to sort out an inheritance of sorts, but I felt like the pacing was slow burning for the majority of the read, particularly with the redundancy of the news articles and Ruby’s diary entries. I wasn’t invested in her past, her black widow status, and wanted to keep going to the present chapters. Aside from that, there were plenty of surprise twists and turns that I did not expect and it was a quick read!

3.5 stars rounded up.

A decent mystery in which nobody is who they seem and everyone has secrets. That sounds a bit generic, but the author keeps it entertaining with some twists, of varying degrees of predictability, and flamboyant characters.

Jules and Camden arrive at Ashby House, a fabulous North Carolina mansion in a glorious mountain setting, ten years after they got married. It was bequeathed to Cam by his adoptive mother, Ruby McTavish and now the remainder of the McTavishes have called him home to sort out his inheritance, which he has never wanted.

Interspersed with Jules’s and Cam’s narratives are letters from Ruby. As a child she was kidnapped by and recovered from a couple in Alabama and as an adult she was widowed four times - so quite a zesty life!

Much to Jules’s frustration, Cam does not want Ashby House and just wants to get his family off his back and get back to their normal life in Colorado. But as things start to unspool, secrets start falling out of the cupboards, and the bodies pile up.

There’s lots to enjoy here, including a few sly insights into characters that initially seemed a little one-dimensional and a plot that takes a few swerves into the slightly incredible. It’s worth a few hours of your time if you enjoy cynical characters and largely bloodless murders.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

I really didn't understand the hype on this one. I felt like it was a soap opera masquerading as a mystery. The supposed mystery is that of Ruby McTavish and the fortune she leaves to her adopted son, Camden, who wants nothing to do with the money or the remaining family and why.

The drama begins when another family member dies, and Camden finally returns home to take care of the house and fortune left to him. It gets very "Days of Our Lives" from there, with cousins being bitter over not gaining all the money, and being more bitter that it went to an adopted son instead of true flesh and blood. The many twists and turns are pretty easy to see coming, and none of them were very shocking. While all of the characters play their parts very well, it's hard to feel anything for any of them because of how terrible they all are. There was a lot of people thinking they were owed everything because... well, I never actually figured that part out. I get that the author was really trying to show a corrupt family, but man does it make for hard reading. The only exception is Camden, who genuinely seems to not care about the money or the family he left behind, and for good reason.

The biggest saving grace for this novel was the setting. You can really imagine a mansion sitting in the Blue Ridge Mountains, surrounded by trees and full of the stories of those who lived there. The descriptions of Ashby House reminded me a lot of the Biltmore House in Asheville, but with a surrounding and atmosphere a little more like the Stanley Hotel or the Schweppe Mansion.

If you enjoy reading about shitty people being shitty to each other with a bit of mystery thrown in, this is the book for you. However, if you can't stand soap operas or anything resembling them, I'd steer clear.

Ruby McTavish is a wealthy little girl who was lost in the woods at three years old near her home in North Carolina. Ruby was found eight months later in another state and returned home to the McTavish family. As Ruby grows up in Ashby house, she often feels that things are not quite right. Ruby writes letters about her years growing up as well as her four marriages. When Ruby dies, she leaves her fortune to Camden, her only son. Camden wants nothing to do with Ashby house or the McTavish family. However, his wife Jules thinks it would be a great idea to visit and get everything taken care of once and for all.

The story is told from three different points of view, alternating between past and present. My favorite point of view was Ruby’s told from letters she wrote. From each letter we learn more about the family and all the secrets each family member holds. There is lots of family drama and tons of twists and turns. I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys thrillers! I give it 5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC! This is the fourth Rachel Hawkins books I’ve read, and I’ve enjoyed each one. I loved the family drama and the setting of The Heiress. The multiple POV style kept me hooked and added to the suspense of the story. I did get a little confused at times because there were a lot of characters and many people had more than one identity, so I felt disconnected at those points. There were lots of twists and turns that I didn’t expect, and the book was the perfect length - I was never bored!

4.5/5 star rating

The story centers around Ruby, Cam, and Jules points of view. Ruby's part of the story was so compelling, it was told in letters to unknown person. I always wanted to skip ahead to the next Ruby section. The way it was written was so clever.

I felt like Jules and Cam kept me less engaged, especially the first half of the book.

I will say I loved the book overall, and was interested in what story was being weaved together. I felt like it was well done. I didn't think it was overly obvious. There were some moments I had pieced together or had theories about that checked out but overall didn't see where the novel was going.

Definitely worth a read!

The heiress is Ruby McTavish, an eccentric, wealthy infamous woman who has had four husbands die. Her family are vultures circling and wanting her home and fortune. Her heir is Camden, an adopted son, who is much despised by the family. Throw in his wife Jules, who comes with secrets of her own and there is a story with many twists and dark secrets through the generations.

I was immediately hooked! This was my first Rachel Hawkins book and I was not disappointed. I will be purchasing more of her books because this was written so well and I could not put it down! I finished this in two days!!

Hawkins' last book reminded me of Daisy Jones & the Six but this one, this gives me Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo vibes and I LOVED IT! I love this new brand of alternate history thriller books and I'm hoping Hawkins writes more. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and flying through pages to find out about what happened to Ruby's husbands. I can't wait to recommend this book to folks when it comes out!

This was a quick read and kept me engaged. Camden inherits a house and money from his adoptive mom, Ruby, who is the heiress to this family fortune. She went missing as a toddler and was eventually found. Camden and his wife, Jules, finally go back to fix the house up and has to deal with his estranged family (great aunt and cousins). Lots of twists and turns!! Some I anticipated and others I didn’t!

Another great read from Rachel Hawkins. The writing style kept me hooked. Bouncing between the viewpoints of Jules and her husband Camden McTavish, to letters from Camden’s late adopted mother, Ruby. The story line between the dysfunctional family kept me awake, wanting to read more. I loved the Rachel Hawkins twists throughout the book. Absolutely fantastic!

This one took a bit for me to get into and I felt like the plot line didn’t really start to pick up until about 60% in. That being said, it was manipulative and twisty and I enjoyed those aspects. The letters were interesting, as well. There were alternating POVs, which is always a win for me.

Another Rachel Hawkins book I couldn’t put down! The Heiress grabs you from page one, told from alternating viewpoints with letters and “news clippings,” and the reader is slowly brought into the fold. We’re left wondering throughout if the mystery happened in the past or if we’re in the middle of it now. It’s a messy family story with more than one unlikable character and I loved every page. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy! I will read everything Rachel Hawkins writes.