Book Review / The Winters by Lisa Gabriele

“From the brilliant first line to the shattering conclusion, The Winters will draw you in and leave you breathless. . . . A must read.” —Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a spellbindingly suspenseful novel set in the moneyed world of the Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that can’t be escaped

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell. She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family: Max and Dani circle each other like cats, a dynamic that both repels and fascinates her, and he harbors political ambitions with which he will allow no woman—alive or dead—to interfere.

As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets—the kind of secrets that could kill her, too. The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything.

Published:    15th November 2018
Publisher:  Harvill Secker
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

MY REVIEW

This was a very interesting thriller to read.  What I had expected was a lot of twists and turns and a lot of surprises but that is not what I got out of of this story.  You have a very rich wealthy business man who meets, falls in love and proposes to a young lady who is more at home on a boat than in a castle but that is where she ends up after falling in love herself.  Unfortunately for the new Mrs Winter, there's more baggage that comes with this marriage than she was expecting.   You have Mr Winter's daughter Dani who is a very difficult individual.  Right from the start, you can see that she is trying to make it difficult for the new Mrs Winter to settle in but maybe there's more to her than meets the eye.

I would have loved to have said that the many twists and turns in this book surprised me but unfortunately they didn't.  In one way or another, I had already guessed all of the story as I went along but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the ride.  For me, the best part of the story was the characters.  Watching then interact with each other, learning to like or get along with each other and wondering whether what they know is the truth or not.

A really interesting unexpected read that I would recommend but I would go into this story open minded and not really knowing much about the story.