Book Review: The Heiress | Rachel Hawkins

Grab food and beverages of your choice and settle in somewhere cozy, because Rachel Hawkins’ latest book, The Heiress, is a read-in-a-day soapy psychological thriller! If you like a dash of rich people behaving badly (and perhaps getting some comeuppance if they behave really badly), this is your next read!

About the Book | The Heiress

Ruby McTavish is an heiress

Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore (nee Ruby McTavish) is North Carolina’s richest and most notorious resident. Her death reignites the gossip that has surrounded Ruby McTavish for decades. Born into generations of wealth, Ruby lived out her life at her ancestral estate, Ashby House. At the age of three, Ruby was kidnapped. Eight months later, the kidnapper was caught, and Ruby was returned safely to her parents.

As Ruby came of age, she attracted quite a few men with her beauty, wealth, and alluring personality. Thus began the first of four marriages, all of which end in the tragic death of her husbands. Ruby was not officially suspected in any of the deaths. Still, that doesn’t stop the town from gossiping. A Four-time widow is a rarity, after all…

After the death of her fourth husband, Ruby adopted a child out of foster care named Camden. Her father had left her Ashby House and his substantial wealth when he passed on. Upon Ruby’s death, she shocks and infuriates her sister Nelle and Nelle’s grandchildren by bequeathing the entire estate to Camden.

Camden McTavish is a reluctant heir

Ten years after his mother’s death, Camden has fully turned away from everything to do with the McTavishes. He still owns Ashby House, but allows Nelle and her grandchildren to live there. He still has the money, but he hasn’t touched a cent of it. He married a woman named Jules and the two live a humble but happy life in Colorado.

When Camden’s uncle dies, his cousin Ben reaches out and asks him to return home finally. When Cam and Jules arrive, it’s clear why Cam left in the first place. There is something rotten about the McTavishes and the house is full of secrets. But Jules has another reason for coming with Cam… she wants that house and the money that Camden inherited. They deserve a good life, more than any of his family members.

But soon Jules begins to understand the twisted games Ruby McTavish played. Was there truth to the rumors that circulated after her kidnapping as a child? Were the four dead husbands a coincidence? And why did she adopt Camden in the first place?

Review | The Heiress

Grab your popcorn—this book is like a good, televised mystery-drama with a dash of suspense, only better. Told in alternating views, the present day part of the story is narrated by Camden and his wife Jules. The other perspective are letters written by Ruby and detailing the scandalous truth of her past, coming clean for the first time after her death (and in epistolary form).

For the first half of the book I was much more invested in Ruby’s storyline. She’s truly an all-time great character. Privileged, witty, intelligent, and a little bit villainous. Despite the things Ruby tells us through her letters, I still was on her side. Was I intended to be? Most definitely not! She reveals several nasty secrets she has kept hidden. But at the same time, there was something so compelling about her. And somehow the members of her family were significantly worse (though perhaps our view of them is colored by Ruby’s narration).

In the present storyline, Jules is the opening narrator, not Camden. She tells us the story of how they met and what their life is like. She knows Camden doesn’t want anything to do with his family. He is clearly holding some secrets back, but we learn that Jules doesn’t really like to discuss her own past. Jules ends her first chapter telling us she wants us to know their story because she truly loves Camden. This should instantly make you wonder about her. I know it made me wonder about her! Jules is a complicated character and by the second half you’ll learn a lot more about her secrets!

Camden is a more subtle character in the first half. He holds his cards close to his chest, even from the reader. He is the lone family member who isn’t biologically a McTavish, and that is constantly displayed as Hawkins contrasts Camden’s pure, unselfish nature with the other McTavish’s greed and manipulation. You’ll want to know why Camden is so turned off by his family that he won’t even use a cent of the money he inherited to help him in life. And don’t worry—you’ll find out why. It’s much juicier than expected, too!

There are a few mysteries that fascinated me throughout, and they largely center around Ruby. The first and least interesting (which I already mentioned) surrounds what caused Camden to leave his family and inheritance around the time of Ruby’s death. The second and more interesting mystery surrounds Ruby’s kidnapping when she was a child. The whole series of events are puzzling, and early on in her letters Ruby spills more information about it that had my brain whirling. Someone was convicted for it, and he confessed. Still, there are rumors that swirl around the kidnapping and return and Ruby herself questions what really happened.

The third mystery is about Ruby’s four husbands. It’s strange to be a four-time widow. People in town talk about it behind closed doors. Every single death had an explanation that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Ruby—she wasn’t even there for most of them. Still, it seems strange, doesn’t it? Don’t worry—Ruby reveals the truth behind all four of her marriages in her letters. They go chronologically so you’ll learn about her marriage to Duke first, and then continue to the others.

This mystery was the most fun one. Ruby’s letters have a wry humor to them that absolutely tickled me. I could picture them in her transatlantic accent, calling everyone “dahhhling”. And Ruby doesn’t hold back—she not only tells us what happened with each marriage, but also her thoughts on it and her justifications. I was absolutely tickled by Ruby! Her letters continue to the very end of the book and I couldn’t wait for the next one.

The other McTavish’s are less prominent characters, but they are critical to the story nonetheless. We hear more about Nelle than see her, though Camden muses early in the book that Nelle’s unpleasantness may be in part because she knows she was conceived to replace Ruby, who then showed back up and took the spotlight again. Nelle is in every way the spare, and that was clear when their father died and left everything to Ruby. Ben and Libby (Nelle’s grandchildren) are deeply unpleasant, especially Libby. Don’t worry, you’ll learn plenty about them and their tactics, too!

I wish I could spoil some things in this review, but it is so fun to read this book with fresh eyes and an open mind, so I will hold them to myself. Expect to be shocked and sometimes horrified. Expect to question your moral judgment at times when you find yourself siding with some devious characters. And hold all of your judgments about what is really going on with the McTavish family and Ashby House until the end!

Suspenseful, salacious, and wickedly clever, The Heiress is another outstanding book by Rachel Hawkins!

Characters | Cheat sheet

Ruby is the daughter of lumber magnate Mason McTavish and his first wife Anna Ashby McTavish. The estate where they live is named for Anna’s family—Ashby House. Jimmy DarNelle was the man who was convicted of kidnapping Ruby when she was three. Nelle is Ruby’s younger sister. She was conceived after Ruby’s kidnapping but before Ruby was returned home.

Camden is Ruby’s adopted son. She adopted him later in life. Jules is his wife. They live in Colorado. Nelle’s son is named Howell and his death prompts the effort to connect with Camden again. Howell’s children are Ben and Libby. Ben is an attorney and Libby is an influencer and business owner. Nathan Collins is the family attorney and connects Ben with Camden.

Ruby was married four times. Her first husband was named Duke Callahan and he died in a robbery while they were honeymooning in Paris. Her second husband was Hugh Woodward, and he was an employee of her father’s. He died in a freak electrical accident. Her third husband was the artist Andrew Miller and he died of health issues. Her final husband was Roddy Kenmore who was a party boy who died in an accident involving drugs and alcohol.