Welcome to Manderley…or, rather, the romantic dream of Manderley.  Who needs a repurposed abbey or a Alpine castle when you have the genuine fire-devastated, ivy-swarmed, misty ruins of a historic manor house along the tempestuous north Atlantic coast? As if that were not Gothic enough, let’s go all out with an orphaned heroine and a very carefully guarded family secret.

SPOILERS Ahoy when you join Sonja and Vanessa as they discuss this 1938 bestseller, REBECCA.  It’s often promoted as a Gothic romance…but is it?  Is Maxim De Winter a proper Gothic hero?  Would you ride in his car? Are there real ghosts?  How are we defining a haunting? Is our unnamed narrator reliable?  Do we like her? Do the servants–once again–add a vital dimension to the mood and twists to the plot?  And which Mrs. De Winter wins? It probably depends on how you feel about having tea with bread and butter.

Along the way, Sonja redefines “gentle flirtation,” and Vanessa blushes, perusing a sexy botanical Tinder profile. 

REFERENCES:

The edition of REBECCA with the really insightful Afterword by Sally Beauman that Vanessa mentions is the 2023 Back Bay Books Edition.