‘The Heiress’: Mystery about money, power and paternity

Rachel Hawkins returns to the American south with her newest novel, “The Heiress.”

Set in Ashby House in the small town of Tavistock, N.C., the mystery of Ruby McTaviston and her family fortune follows three perspectives and includes confessional letters of many dirty deeds.

Hawkins, who broke into adult fiction with a retelling of “Jane Eyre” called “The Wife Upstairs,” once again plays with well-worn tropes and a slew of third-act twists to keep readers engaged.

Character Analysis

Main Characters

Ruby McTavish
Camden McTavish
Jules Brewster
Nelle McTavish
Ben McTavish
Libby McTavish

Ruby McTavish, who died in 2013 at age 73,, is the older of the two McTavish children. She was kidnapped for nearly a year when she was 3 years old. This event deeply influenced her life, including her four marriages, and her decision to adopt a child.

Although Ruby died 10 years prior to the start of “The Heiress,” her story drives the narrative. Her point of view is shared via letters written a month before her death. In each, she shares an element of her life from her fractious relationship with younger sister, Nelle, to the deaths of her four husbands.

Camden McTavish is Ruby’s adopted son who forsook the family and its wealth to strike out on his own. He and his wife, Jules, reside in Colorado where he works as an English teacher for a private boys school.

The 30-year-old’s manipulated into returning to his childhood home to repair the dilapidated homestead. Camden and refer to him as Ruby’s experiment. Part of luring Camden back to Tavistock is to overrule Ruby’s will and remove Camden as the executor.

Camden’s wife, Jules Brewster, wants him to embrace his inheritance and the privileges that come with the McTavish name. She’s endured poverty and unrealized ambitions of becoming an actress who now seeks to access the good McTavish family wealth can buy.

Jules’ chapters slowly reveal she’s more involved in the couple’s trip to the Ashby House in the Blue Ridge Mountains than her husband knows.

Ruby’s younger sister, Nelle McTavish, resents her older sister for returning home and becoming their father’s favorite. Nelle exists as a backup for Ruby, who was missing when she was conceived.

Despite Ruby’s death and having her own money, Nelle and her family continue to reside in Ashby House and live off the family’s resources.

Nelle’s only son, Ben McTavish, acts as a foil for Camden. He’s a southern lawyer obsessed with estate management who resides at Ashby House and relishes his adversarial dynamic with Camden. He aims to leverage the law to oust Camden from the McTavish family and claim the wealth after Nelle dies.

Ben’s younger sister, Libby McTavish, is a parody of a bored rich woman. Libby,27, posts about her life, including her two failed marriages, and her pathetic business ventures on Instagram. The youngest McTavish is a slave to fashion and health food trends.

While she’s less involved than Ben in the attempted removal of Camden from the McTavish fortune, Libby does have a history with her cousin.

Plot Summary

“The Heiress” begins with Camden McTavish and Jules Brewster leaving their home in Golden, Colo., to drive to Tavistock, N.C.

Camden begrudgingly agrees to take a leave of absence from his teaching job and return to his boyhood home, Ashby House, to address repairs and allocate proper funding. He dreads interacting with his adoptive family who see him as an outsider and make veiled threats against him.

Jules is far more excited about visiting the famous family mansion isolated in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She grew up working class in Florida before meeting Camden while a student in California. The trappings of wealth appeal to her, especially the beauty of Ashby House.

Once the pair arrives, Jules witnesses the surviving McTavishes’ rudeness toward Camden and her. Libby McTavish makes messes and passive-aggressive comments, Ben nearly threatens Camden and takes an inappropriate interest in Jules’ name and background, and Nelle outright tells them she wants them to leave Ashby House.

Interspersed throughout Camden and Jules’ chapters are the late Ruby McTavish’s letters written in March 2013 a month before she died. The letters reveal intimate facts about how each of Ruby’s former husbands died. Each disclosed incriminating information the McTavish name has allowed to stay buried for decades.

Camden and Ben are repairing bathrooms in Ashby House while Jules lounges outside and investigates different rooms. Conflicts escalate when Ben jokes about missing hikes on a nearby trail and invites Jules for a walk on the trail without Camden.

Throughout the tense moments at Ashby House, Camden maintains a cool demeanor while his chapters show flashbacks to a youth full of verbal and physical abuse by his aunt and cousins. These instances of being an outsider further bonded him with Ruby as they enjoyed breakfast at the Jay, a local diner.

Nelle’s announcement of a mandatory family dinner leads to revelations about Ruby’s place in the family and what that means for Camden. But, Camden anticipated the antics and has already spoken with an attorney.

He and Jules retire to their rooms but are soon awakened to learn that Nelle died in her sleep. The police are called and the cousins go into town to make funeral arrangements.

Left alone in the house, Camden confesses to Jules why he abandoned Ashby House and Tavistock. Jules accepts what Camden shared with her and promises to keep his secret.

Camden takes a drive shortly after their discussion, leaving Jules alone at Ashby House. It’s then that Ben confronts her about her investment in seeing Camden access the McTavish money. He threatens to expose her secret to Camden, inciting an act of violence that destroys Ashby House and kills Ben and Libby.

“The Heiress” ends with the McTavish wealth belonging exclusively to Camden and Jules. Neither of whom are true descendants of the family.

Final Thoughts

“The Heiress” is eminently readable with three perspectives and the inclusion of newspaper clippings, interviews, Google search results, and even 1980s tabloid reports.

Even with a humorous unapologetic character like Ruby, “The Heiress” isn’t without flaws. The most notable issues are the characterizations of Camden and Libby specifically and the heavy use of explaining after the fact rather than incorporating several plot twists.

Hawkins fleshes out Ruby and Jules and makes ambitious and selfish but likable. Meanwhile, Camden is a well-behaved, long-suffering cypher, and Libby reads like a two-dimensional Gen-Z influencer stereotype.

The pacing and plotting are terribly uneven, particularly during the revelatory dinner scene. Hawkins misses opportunities to better seed the reveals rather than making them expository statements from Camden and Ben.

Taking into account its faults, “The Heiress” still provides a fun, fast-paced domestic mystery. It’s a lightweight exploration of family and the dangers of excessive wealth.