Lead review (A gilded cage. Thriller set in THE HAMPTONS)
- Book: The Winters
- Location: The Hamptons
- Author: Lisa Gabriele
With more than a nod to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this is a gripping novel that will keep you guessing until – almost – the very end. It moves at a good pace with plenty of switchbacks and brooding menace leaving the reader guessing and wondering. Who indeed is the manipulator and who is really being manipulated…
A young woman, whose name we never learn (just as in Rebecca), is working in the Cayman Islands, taking clients out on sailing trips. One of the clients is Max Winter (Republican Senator Max Winter, no less) who falls headlong for this seemingly innocent and gullible young woman – yet she is paradoxically a tough woman, used to the company of men and their ways. Her boss Laureen warns her off in no uncertain terms but the lure of wealth and the splendid Asherley estate (centred around the huge house that seems more Gothic than Queen Anne) turns her head, and feelings seem to be reciprocated by this older and rather smooth silver fox, who almost trails around after her. It is a short courtship….
“That’s the thill of whirlwind romance: not knowing exactly where you’ll land once the storm subsides…”
She leaves everything behind to join him in The Hamptons but the complications of his daughter Dani’s fragile emotional state and the ghostly presence of his first wife Rebekah, who was a Russian society scion, soon undermine the fairytale change in her fortunes. Dani seems to be a malevolent young woman, bent on making the soon-to-be second Mrs Winter’s life a misery (here it is the daughter, in the original it was the housekeeper, Mrs Danvers). Max makes all the right noises about enforcing discipline on his daughter but his way of soothing the situation is to send her red roses and delay confrontation. Dynamics in the grand household are becoming distinctly sour and the feeling that this might be a gilded cage start to embed.
The psychological aspect of the book is neatly done. The fact that everyone has a name apart from the central character highlights that the new Mrs Winter is still malleable, a woman potentially chosen to be moulded by her older suitor – and certainly out of her depth with the wealthy folks in The Hamptons. She has to learn to play the long game as she gradually becomes aware of what is really going on.
This kept me engaged right the way through. If I had a couple of quibbles (and they are minor!), I found the first chapter a bit of a strange opener that I had to read a couple of times and nearly discouraged me from continuing. The author, however, very much gets into her stride from Chapter 2 onwards and then the end felt a little loose. And just a little more psychological depth around the burgeoning relationship that underpins the move to Asherley would have made everything even more credible – it maybe isn’t quite enough to explain away young woman’s infatuation with Senator Winter as being due to the loss of her parents in younger, impressionable years. Overall, though, a cracking read, and motivates me to re-read the original Rebecca. Perhaps it might spur others, who have never read it, to pick it up, the author in fact pulls off this Rebecca inspired thriller. Recommended and one to watch over the coming months.
The ace cover needs a mention too!