Rebecca

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Number of pages: 448

Started: 13 May 2008

Finished: 21 May 2008

Opening words:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate.

Plot summary:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers ...Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

Summary taken from Amazon.

What I thought:

I really enjoyed this book. It was very atmospheric and had a sense of doom about it. There was a part of me that thought the new Mrs de Winter could have done herself a bit of a favour but speaking up for herself a bit, but given the circumstances of her arrival at Manderley her reaction was perhaps justified. It was interesting that you never got to find out what her first name was though, even though the name of the previous Mrs de Winter was so dominant, including being the title of the book.

Well worth a read and makes me want to read more of Daphne du Maurier’s books.