Dreaming of Manderley

Daphne Du Maurier’s darkly gothic novel Rebecca provides the inspiration for this old-fashioned contemporary romance from Brown (the It Girls series). Manderley Maxwell, named for Du Maurier’s crumbling estate, feels out of place in the glam world of Hollywood. As personal assistant to big-time screenwriter Olivia Tate, her best friend from college, “strictly B-list” Manderley mourns the recent accidental deaths of her father and favorite aunt and dreams of writing novels someday. Right now she’s stuck in posh Cannes, France, where Olivia’s up for a Palme d’Or award. Suddenly Manderley meets “delicious” Xavier de Maloret, heir to a luxury yacht-building company. Xavier “thrills and terrifies” her with his secretive, paternalistic manner, and she’s drawn to him despite his mysterious, possibly nefarious, past. Convinced that Xavier only needs true love to help repair the “invisible emotional thorn” lodged in his metaphorical paw, Manderley agrees to marry him. Left alone at his family estate, she finally begins to wonder about his last wife’s mysterious disappearance and whether she might be next. If readers can get past Manderley’s passivity and Xavier’s manipulative arrogance, they will enjoy Brown’s descriptions of a world of luxury. [em]Agent: Ethan Ellenberg, Ethan Ellenberg Literary. (Jan.) [/em]