Tag Archives: Rachel Rhys

#BookReview ‘Murder Under the Tuscan Sun’ by Rachel Rhys #mystery #suspense

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Against her son’s wishes, widow Constance Bowen travels to Tuscany to take a job as companion to an ill English gentleman in the Castello di Roccia Nera just outside Florence. Murder Under the Tuscan Sun by Rachel Rhys is set in an exquisitely beautiful place and the change of scenery is exactly what Constance believes she needs. It is very different from Pinner. Rachel RhysCarrying with her a double grief – for her husband, dead a year, and daughter Millie, five years earlier – Constance is wracked with nerves and doubt. Her patient, stroke-sufferer William North, proves irascible and sparing in his conversation. Constance has been employed by William’s niece, Evelyn Manetti. A flighty beautiful creature devoted to her Italian-American husband Roberto, Evelyn seems less enchanted with Nora, her daughter with her first husband.
The setting is voluptuous and it’s easy to fall for the delights of this Tuscan summer, as Constance quickly does. But all is not happy in this beautiful place and there are occasional unkindnesses and cruelty that make it uncomfortable. It is 1927 and fascism is rising. The castle is said to be haunted by a young girl, a talented violinist, denounced as a witch and bricked up alive in the castle walls.
The community of locals and ex-pats is populated with a collection of likeable and objectionable characters. When spooky things start to happen – mysterious music at night, the vision of a disappearing child dressed in white – which only Constance witnesses, I wanted to shout ‘leave now.’ The story is told in its entirety from Constance’s point of view. Her confusion at what she sees and experiences, and her inability or unwillingness to challenge anyone, becomes repetitive until her son James arrives and asks difficult questions of his mother.
So the title is misleading, this is not a thriller, not a crime novel. More a mystery suspense story in the vein of Mary Stewart or Daphne du Maurier. A strong sense of unease permeates the castle, something is not quite right – is Constance ill, vulnerable, suffering from exhaustion, or is there evil at work.
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And here’s my review of FATAL INHERITANCE, also by Rachel Rhys

If you like this, try:-
‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase
‘The Paris Apartment’ by Lucy Foley
‘The Snakes’ by Sadie Jones

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MURDER UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN by Rachel Rhys https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6Bp via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Mick Herron

#BookReview ‘Fatal Inheritance’ by Rachel Rhys #romance #glamour

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Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys is a mystery set in the South of France three years after the end of World War Two. This is a glamorous place of sun and colours and beauty but which hides wartime shade and recriminations, canker beneath the luxury and smiles. Rachel RhysWhen Eve Forrester receives a solicitor’s letter promising ‘something to her advantage’, she leaves her husband in England and travels to Cap d’Antibes. Clifford disapproves of her journey, he thinks it inappropriate, a waste of time, doubts the veracity of the will of this mysterious Mr Guy Lester who Eve does not know. But Eve defies her husband and goes anyway, curious, listening to the inner voice which tells her there is more to life. This is a novel where you want to shout to the heroine, to encourage her onwards, to have strength to take a new path.
Eve inherits a part-share in the Villa La Perle at Cap d’Antibes, near neighbours are the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Eve, in her ‘make do and mend’ clothing, is thrown into a glamorous social whirl of people she finds awkward, dismissive and arrogant. Rhys draws a layered picture of society where obvious wealth may hide troubled finances, make up and lipstick covers bruises, and smiles hide venom. It is a place where the locals avoid people and businesses which ‘helped’ the German occupiers, where memories of the war are fresh. In the middle of this, Eve struggles to understand her inheritance while delaying Guy Lester’s family from signing papers to sell the villa. And all the time, Eve wonders what Clifford is doing at home, knowing he disapproves of her being there, knowing he worries about the cost.
An entertaining novel in a beautiful, flawed setting – neatly mirroring the flawed people – not quite suspense, not quite a romance in the conventional sense. Rhys writes about women particularly well, not just Eve but the housekeeper Mrs Finch, actress Gloria Hayes, and fellow tourist Ruth Collett. I liked Eve, disliked her husband, and chuckled when the ‘love interest’ switched between surly to over-attentive. If I have one query, it is the solution to the mystery which comes rather out of left-field and left me feeling a little cheated. The ending, though, is unbelievably poignant. A great beach read.

And here’s my review of MURDER UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, also by Rachel Rhys

If you like this, try:-
‘The Night Child’ by Anna Quinn
‘The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green’ by Shelley Weiner
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FATAL INHERITANCE by Rachel Rhys https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3qA via @SandraDanby