Rebecca's Tale

On the twentieth anniversary of the death of Rebecca, the hauntingly beautiful first wife of Maxim de Winter, family friend Colonel Julyan receives an anonymous parcel. It contains a black notebook with two handwritten words on the title page - Rebecca's Tale - and two pictures: a photograph of Rebecca as a young child and a postcard of Manderley. Rebecca once asked Julyan to ensure she was buried in the churchyard facing the sea: if she ended up in the de Winter crypt, she warned, she'd come back to haunt him. Now, it seems, she has finally kept her promise. Julyan's conscience has never been clear over the official version of Rebecca's death. Was Rebecca the manipulative, promiscuous femme fatale her husband claimed? Or the gothic heroine of tragic proportions that others had suggested? The official story, the 'truth', has only had Maxim's version of events to consider. But all that is about to change. . .

Short-listed for WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award 2002
Short-listed for WH Smith Thumping Good Read Book Award 2002

“The artful Sally Beauman plays extremely clever games with the staples of popular fiction, moving the pieces to make original and intriguing patterns . . . A hugely entertaining read, seriously romantic and with a terrific sense of atmosphere. Sally Beauman's control of her complex material is absolute”

- Kate Saunders, DAILY EXPRESS

Compelling, absorbing, captivating, haunting- Sally Beauman's most ambitious and imaginative book so far - Elaine Showalter

REBECCA'S TALE is bold and clever...In this evocative and compulsive reworking of the balance of power between the sexes, Sally Beauman steers her creation into feminist territory and succeeds in overturning our loyalties. - Elizabeth Buchan, THE TIMES

Once you start reading a Beauman book, you can't put it down, as Rebecca's Tale attests...I felt satisfied that she had done an extraordinary thing; she convinced me that the Rebecca of these assorted memories really was the Rebecce that du Maurier's novel - Linda Grant, GUARDIAN

Sally Beauman has had great critical and commercial success with all her novels: DESTINY, DARK ANGEL and the series LOVERS AND LIARS, DANGER ZONES and SEXTET have been translated into over twenty languages and have been bestsellers worldwide.

On the twentieth anniversary of the death of Rebecca, the hauntingly beautiful first wife of Maxim de Winter, family friend Colonel Julyan receives an anonymous parcel. It contains a black notebook with two handwritten words on the title page - Rebecca's Tale - and two pictures: a photograph of Rebecca as a young child and a postcard of Manderley. Rebecca once asked Julyan to ensure she was buried in the churchyard facing the sea: if she ended up in the de Winter crypt, she warned, she'd come back to haunt him. Now, it seems, she has finally kept her promise. Julyan's conscience has never been clear over the official version of Rebecca's death. Was Rebecca the manipulative, promiscuous femme fatale her husband claimed? Or the gothic heroine of tragic proportions that others had suggested? The official story, the 'truth', has only had Maxim's version of events to consider. But all that is about to change. . .

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