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Colleen has been dating her boss, the CEO of a financial company, since she started work there about six months previously. She got pregnant soon into their relationship, and now she is moving in to Michael’s house, a palatial estate on the California coast south of San Francisco. But however opulent it is, with a chef ready to make all her meals and a housekeeper on hand to keep everything perfectly clean and tidy, Colleen is not comfortable: She is confronted at every turn by the memory of Michael’s estranged wife, Joanna, who left him soon before Colleen began dating him and hasn’t contacted him since.
The housekeeper and chef clearly loved Joanna and resent Colleen, and Michael doesn’t really get how difficult that is for her. Colleen is supposed to be resting and reducing her stress levels during her pregnancy, but this move into Ravenwood isn’t making that happen. And then a body is found in the grove of cypress trees right across the street from the house: It’s Joanna, and she has been there for months.
In Her Shadow takes liberally from Daphne du Maurier’s classic gothic tale Rebecca, placing it in the current day and making it more murder mystery. The story regularly switches points of view among Colleen and Michael, as well as a police detective and a next-door neighbor, Rachael. Readers see many angles of the story and the feelings of those involved, aside from just that of a haunted and anxious Colleen. A lot had been going on behind closed doors in the lives of the supposedly happy couple Michael and Joanna, and Colleen pieces these things together from talking to Rachael, who was friends with Joanna, and hearing bits of information from the servants. At the same time, readers know there’s plenty that’s not been or being revealed, and it all comes to a head at the end of the book.
In Her Shadow is an entertaining thriller that borrows nicely from Rebecca while standing on its own. I wasn’t sure it was necessary to have four points of view; it just seems a little much, especially including the police detective, who isn’t a main character as are the other three narrators, but it may just be that the author found it the only way for her to get the needed information across.
Rated: High, for right around 7 instances of strong language and occasional uses of mild and moderate profanity. Sexual content is mostly limited to talk about characters having sex or having affairs. Violence includes a dead body being found, but no real gruesome details; use of a shovel to strike the victim in the head; rage leading to domestic violence (near-strangling and hitting).
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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