Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

I just finished Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and couldn’t put it down. It’s written in 1938 and tells the story of a young, unnamed narrator who, after a whirlwind romance, follows her new husband back to his estate, Manderley. There, she learns more about his first wife, Rebecca, who has been dead not even a year and to whom she feels she can never measure up against. It’s thrilling to watch as the second Mrs. de Winter, young and naive, finds herself fighting a ghost and her imagination for her home, sanity and love. I love the narrator’s imaginative tangents, I love the evocative language, the sensual descriptions that allow me to almost smell the azaleas and the see the English mists, and above all, I was captivated by the mystery surrounding Rebecca’s death. Highly recommend!