Spoiler-Free Review

If you’re looking for a thriller that’s fast to read and incorporates some interesting elements (and if you enjoy stories about rich people gone bad), I recommend The Heiress.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. All opinions are my own. This one just released January 9th!

What’s The Heiress about?

Camden, the heir to a wealthy estate, and his wife Jules are pulled into the fold of Ashby House, where his despicable family still lives. But questions begin to arise about his adoptive mother, her four dead husbands, and her own mysterious past.

While not mind-blowing, I did enjoy it.

The Heiress is equal parts thriller and family drama. We have Camden, who inherited the entire estate but wants nothing to do with it. There’s his wife, Jules, who secretly wants to claim Ashby House as theirs. We also have Ruby McTavish, Camden’s late adoptive mother, who we get to know through her letters. And then there’s Aunt Nelle and cousins Ben and Libby – all of whom are the perfect embodiment of “power corrupts.”

I liked that this was part narrative, part epistolary. The chapters were taking place in the present, following Jules and Cam as they arrive at Ashby House. But interspersed between these chapters were Ruby’s letters as well as news articles, emails, and other scraps. It made for an interesting reading experience.

Another thing this book did really well was make each POV distinct. The married couple, Jules and Cam, had their own unique narrative voices that made it easy to keep the chapters straight in my head, and the letters from Ruby McTavish definitely had their own feel and tone. I also enjoyed most of the characters, even when I didn’t like them as people. Although, I did feel that Libby added little to the plot and I think the story would’ve been the same without her.

I will say, I didn’t necessarily feel that this was one I “couldn’t put down” until about 60% in – actually, it had a few slow moments. It spent a lot of time setting up, and I felt not much of interest happened in the first half. This is also billed as a “gothic thriller,” but I usually expect a little more atmosphere from anything gothic. While the sprawling mansion estate had a lot of potential as a lush setting, not much was done with it in my opinion.

There are definitely twists, but I hesitate to call it twisty. There were a few things I didn’t see coming, but nothing mind-blowing.

Overall, though, it was enjoyable as a quick and easy read!

Should you read The Heiress?

If you like thrillers, old mansions, immoral rich people, inheritances, and epistolary novels, you’ll probably like this one as well.