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Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman

'I turned the page and discovered the two title words written in black ink, in a child’s spiky hand, the tail of the last letter curling down the page in a long punning flourish: Rebecca’s Tale…’
April 1951. It is twenty years since the death of Rebecca, the strikingly beautiful first wife of Maxim de Winter. It is twenty years since the inquest, which famously – and controversially- passed a verdict of suicide. Twenty years since Manderley, the de Winter’s ancient family seat was razed to the ground.

But Rebecca’s tale is just beginning.

On the twentieth anniversary of her death, family friend Colonel Julyan receives an anonymous parcel in the post. 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 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 it really suicide, or was it actually murder? 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 ever had Maxim’s version of events to consider. But all that is about to change…

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