Rebecca

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is often described as "the classic tale of romantic suspense." Suspense is a good word to describe it. This is a gothic romance.

Du Maurier is a pro at setting the mood. Her talent at this is what earns her fame, because she sets the mood so cleverly during the first 4 pages of the book that readers aren't likely to cast her novel aside. Consider the following passage:

"The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself."

How's that for eerie? Notice the words twisted, alien, nameless, bastard, spurious, malevolent, enemy, prisoners, crept, encroach. Carefully chosen, fearsome words! The creepiness of it is consistent with the entire novel, so she is not fooling readers either.

The main character is likeable. None of us would wish to be like her--she is timid, overly-imaginative, sensitive, awkward, naive--but that makes us root for her. She doesn't have what she wants, but there is no clear way for her to get it.

Sometimes the dialogue looks overly simple. Don't let it fool you. Tension, tension, tension!
I have to keep this short and sweet or I will give the plot away! Don't research this or you'll ruin it for yourself. And the Hitchcock movie really ruined something.