My Cousin Rachel – Daphne Du Maurier

It’s January, I’ve been able to focus long enough to read books again for a while now, and so a friend and I have re-established our book club of two that I had to abandon some time ago (she kept going with a book club of one).

January’s book is My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier, (formally known as Dame Daphne Du Maurier, Lady Browning, DBE although she never used the title, allegedly telling no one about the honour, with even her children only hearing about it from newspapers) an early to mid 20th century romance novelist. Du Maurier, spent the majority of her life in Cornwall, a place she loved so much she became an early member of Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow. My Cousin Rachel, like most of her books, is set in Cornwall.

This is my first time reading anything by her and I was immediately taken with the writing, which I found very engaging and it drew my interest straight away. The story is told in the first person, the narrator, Philip Ashley, has been brought up by his cousin, Ambrose, after the early death of his parents. He is the sole heir to Ambrose’s Cornish farm, who has never married. Suffering from rheumatism, Ambrose is advised by doctors to winter in warmer climates and on of his sojourn’s abroad he meets and falls in love with his mysterious distant cousin Rachel. They marry and remain in Florence for some 18 months until, on receipt of increasing strange and worrying letters, Philip travels to visit, only to find that Ambrose dead and his wife gone, taking all their belongings with her.

Returning home, he finds Ambrose has never altered his will, and Philip remains the sole heir, but won’t come into his property fully until his 25th birthday. It is not long before his cousin Rachel turns up on the scene and while Philip is initially suspicious and inclined to hate her, believing her responsible for the death of Ambrose, on meeting her her warms to her charming and unassuming character. Is she really responsible for the death of Ambrose, and come to claim what she believes to be hers, or is she really just visiting the home and people her late husband told her so much about?

Besides the main two, there is a lovely cast of characters, that weave in and out of the story; Seecombe, the loyal servant initially disturbed by the thought of a woman intruding in this bachelor home, but soon fall under cousin Rachel’s spell. Philip’s Godfather and guardian, Nick Kendall and his daughter Louise, who everyone expects Phillip will marry. Mrs Pascoe, a regular Mrs Bennett with her collection of unmarried daughters, and various other tenants and farmers. Not to forget cousin Rachel’s lawyer/lover/co-conspirator? Rainaldi who follows her to Cornwall from Florence on “business”.

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely read more from this author. Although it is fairly slow paced, the writing is a joy and the story unfolds nicely to it’s gripping finale.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Author: admin

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