Today I am delighted to be sharing my review for The Winters by Lisa Gabriele. I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher Vintage Books before Christmas and I have finally got to it.

I have to say the cover for this book really does suit the story inside, condensated windows and roses…

So let’s see what it is all about…

An addictively suspenseful new novel set in the glamorous world of the New York Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that cannot be escaped.

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter – a wealthy senator 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.

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.

Inspired by the classic novel Rebecca, The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything.

This book is inspired by Rebecca, a story I read many years ago, and though I cannot remember huge amounts about it, I do remember reading it and really, really enjoying it.

The setting for Gabriele’s story is the exclusive Hamptons area of New York, as well as the Grand Caymans. A whirlwind romance and being whisked away from scraping a living on the Caymans to the Hamptons should be a dream come true for the unnamed narrator. She tells how Max came into her life and turned it upside down.

Secrets are aplenty in this novel and so many of them caught me unawares. Secrets of the past and new ones promised not ever to tell are a heavy feature. It helps build up a sense of mistrust for pretty much all of the characters and left me unsure who I could actually believe. Were any of them telling the truth, were accusations based on fact, did anything anyone said true?

This story is descriptive and atmospheric and I did feel that it had elements I would expect in a story like this. Passages from the narrator helped build up a picture of her thoughts, feelings, worries, and concerns. I found that I was immediately hooked with a wonderful first line

“Last night Rebekah tried to murder me again.”

That line was brilliant, it had me intrigued to know more. What I discovered was a fantastically addictive read that had me wondering who Rebekah was. Wrapped up in the walls of Asherly are memories, memories of a family, a husband, a wife, a daughter, parties, friends, of heartbreak, loss, lies, deception and always lurking on the edge is the suspicion of danger. The narrator came across as intimidated and out of her depth, just as she was supposed to feel…

While I was reading this story I thought the narrator had a calmness to her, almost distracted and by the end of the book, I could understand this matter of fact-ness and distance that I felt. A story that I could have quite happily read in one sitting and that I would definitely recommend.

Many thanks for reading my post, a like or share would be amazing 🙂 xx