Decades after the heiress Ruby McTavish was kidnapped as a toddler and dubiously recovered a year later, her adopted son Camden and his wife Jules return to her ancestral home in a bid to claim her long-neglected inheritance.
This book draws inspiration from several cases in the early 20th century in which a kidnapped or vanished child was thought to be returned, only for it to be later discovered that it was instead some unrelated child who for whatever reason was trying to be forced into place. It’s an intriguing question which haunts Ruby through her story, but also sets up some intriguing nature vs nurture themes throughout the book.
My favorite part of the book was the storyline in which Ruby confesses the true story of her life – there’s plenty of twists and turns and plenty of darkness, and in the end I was conflicted about what I thought of Ruby. I was only sure that I found her compelling. The story of the McTavishes reaches the heights of Southern gothic at points, and ends with a nice, well-earned couple of stings in the tail.
However, I did think the modern-day portion was weaker. Especially the sections narrated by Jules – while I understood why the author had chosen to have her narrate, I did find her chapters the weakest, maybe because we hear a lot of hints about her secrets but it doesn’t actually move the plot forward until the very end. While I enjoyed the twisted dynamics of the McTavish family, we seemed to move in a holding pattern regarding the actual plot until after Ruby’s confessions were complete, so the two storylines just felt unbalanced.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
