Monday 26 April 2010

Rebecca ~ Daphne Du Maurier

This story follows the life of a young female attendant to a wealthy matron. The young lady and her employer are vacationing in Italy when they meet a famous Englishman, Max de Winter. Two weeks later Max and the young woman are married, and he brings his new bride back to England to his stately home, Manderley. But all is not blissful for the newly married couple as the new Mrs. de Winter soon discovers that life at Manderley is haunted by the shadow of Max’s first wife, Rebecca. The mystery of Rebecca’s death grows throughout the summer. Finally, all of Mrs. de winter’s questions are answered through a series of startling events.

This famous 1938 gothic novel completely surprised me (in a good way). I was puzzled by the story right up until the very end. But I enjoyed reading this book because it had such a fantastic twist, and Daphne Du Maurier is an excellent descriptive writer; the reader can easily picture everything that is happening. One other thing that was unique about this tale is that you never find out what the new Mrs. de Winter’s first name is. She is only called by her surname. This was an interesting novel for adults.

2 comments:

Nikki Sowers said...

I was looking through our blog today, and I came to this book again. After looking at my review I realized that the cover of this book makes it look like it's a modern-day romance novel. But it's not at all! It's a gothic mystery through and through; no links to romance novels at all (thankfully!). I thought I had better say that just in case people saw the cover resemblance, too. :-]

Ana said...

:) Thanks for clarifying that. I'm sure if someone was interested and they read the review they'd probably understand that.