The Heiress

The Heiress 

By Rachel Hawkins 

St. Martin’s Press, 2023 

Fiction, thriller 

Reviewed by Lenore Vickrey 

I was first introduced to Rachel Hawkins when I read The Wife Upstairs a few years ago. I was intrigued by the fact that the author was an Alabamian, and the book was set in Birmingham, where I grew up. I always like to support the home-grown talent in our state, and I wasn’t disappointed. So, when presented with another Hawkins book, The Heiress, I was ready to dig in.  Whoa. This one is so chock-full of mysterious characters that I had a hard time deciding whose side I was on if anyone’s.  

Hawkins uses multiple narrators to tell the story, as well as letters from the woman who drives the plot, one Ruby McTavish, a wealthy North Carolina philanthropist who was kidnapped as a child and who has buried four husbands. Hmmm. There’s probably a reason she’s known locally as “Mrs. Kill-more.” Things get rolling when Ruby dies and leaves her mansion and sizable fortune to her adopted son, Cam, who is not too interested. He grew up in the huge house but left the area for Colorado and his preferred life as a schoolteacher, along with his wife, Jules, who works as a historical interpreter. When he is called back home by his relatives after his mother dies, he and Jules are plunged back into the world of his Aunt Nelle (Ruby’s sister) and her irritating grandchildren, Ben and Libby, all of whom resent Cam’s inheritance. Jules, however, fancies the idea of living on the estate, which is just one of the conflicts that surface.  

At the risk of giving away too much of the plot, suffice it to say that Hawkins keeps her readers on their toes with a series of devices, such as Ruby’s letters, old news stories, excerpts from travel guides and magazines, emails between the cousins, and going back and forth between Cam and Jules as narrators. Just when I thought I’d figured out what was going on, Hawkins threw in another twist to this already multi-layered tale of avarice, deception, and secrets. Talk about a dysfunctional family. 

The book is a page-turner, and if you think you know where she’s heading, think again. But that’s what makes mysteries such diverting reads, and this one qualifies. Fans of Rachel Hawkins will not be disappointed. Now I think I’ll add her previous novels, The Villa and Reckless Girls, to my TBR list.  

Lenore Vickrey is editor of Alabama Living, the official publication of the rural electric cooperatives in Alabama, and an avid reader.