No matter how much we love romance books, they are mainly dismissed by critics as a low literature. And you can see where it's coming from. Romance novels, although selling in excessive amounts, are unlikely inclusions to the list of books that are culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. But there are certain romance books that have successfully escaped being critics' scapegoats. So, today we are reviewing something different and that's Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca".
With horror and thriller aficionados are well acquainted with Daphne du Maurier's short stories via their movie adaptations like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963) and Nicola Roeg's "Don't Look Now" (1973), she seems quite an unlikely author to attracts fans of romance books, but in her lifetime du Maurier had been often dismissed as a romance book writer by critics and readers alike thanks to her novels. But with the time she had gained critical praise, specifically for "Rebecca" (1939), a novel which has never gone out of print in the US and the UK. So, what's so special about it?
Well, the novel start like the vast majority of the romance books, while on the holiday in a luxurious hotel in Monte Carlo, a naïve young woman in her yearly twenties meets an aristocratic man, whom she instantly falls in love with. While most of the post-2011 romance book readers would expect that the aristocrat would turn out to be pretty much into S&M kinks, the plot twists was quite different back in the 1930s. Soon the wealthy aristocrat marries the protagonist, and she becomes his second wife. Yes, the wealthy aristocrat turns out to be a widower.
You know all those stories when you are dating a guy, who had an ex and you get the feeling that he haven't overcome his previous relationship and you feel haunted by them? Well, that's something that you may find in "Rebecca". Yes, the eponymous Rebecca is the wealthy aristocrat's late wife. And despite the fact that she's dead, the newly weds, can't get rid off of her presence. That's probably all you need to know about "Rebecca", as giving more would make the reading of the book far less interesting. For those who may be driven away from the book considering it to be a ghost story – no, it isn't a ghost story. But "Rebecca" is the first rate romantic psychological thriller.
It has all the ingredients of the romance book and all the ingredients of the thriller. So, for thriller aficionados it may be the first entry to the world of romantic books, while for fans of the latter it may become their first entry to thriller genre.