I really enjoyed this book. It was rich in detail which I really enjoyed. I read it one sitting due to the edge of the seat thriller type plot. However the plot was predictable. I still really enjoyed it and look forward to more from this author.

The book started well enough as an ingenious retelling of Du Maurier’s Rebecca, with the Mrs Danvers character transformed into a sulky and vicious teenager. Sadly, I felt it became a bit too predictable at the end, with not that much to distinguish it from the current crop of domestic thrillers.

Based on Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, this book is a gripping and suspenseful modern take on the original.

I read Rebecca many years ago so only have a vague recollection of the story. I think this helped as I wasn’t comparing the books. As this is a modern retelling, the book isn’t as dark and gothic as the original which helps you see the differences. I thought the characters were interesting and brilliantly written, especially the teenage daughter, Dani. It’s difficult to figure her out and she definitely adds to the mystery.

The ending is very well done, and wraps everything up. A great mystery read, whether you have read the original or not.

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter - a wealthy senator and recent widower - and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell.

As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets - the kind of secrets that could kill her, too

A haunting tale in a haunting setting, The Winters was very suspenseful.
At first it seems that the bride to be has hit it lucky and will live happy ever after in a rich home with a rich man, but all is not what it seems and disturbing things begin to come to light, including Max’s difficult, troubled daughter Dani.
The characters were interesting, though I can’t say I warmed to any of them, except maybe Dani, eventually, pity was a big emotion here as she was obviously unhinged and grief stricken.
The plot was full of suspense and unease, the atmosphere charged with foreboding, well written and evenly paced, I enjoyed this psychological thriller and will read more from this Author.

When you start reading The Winters it is easy to think you know where the story is going, however as you get towards the end of the story Lisa Gabriele takes you on a completely different path.
A good read with an unexpected ending - the best type of book.

I enjoyed this book. It was inspired by Daphne du Maurier''s Rebecca and I think the author has succeeded in also writing an epic tale. I wasn't sure what to expect or how the story would unfold as it does not really develop until the end of the book but that doesn't matter as the author does a very good job of building the characters up. I couldn't' predict what would happen and I liked that, as it kept my interest throughout the book. and I slowly realised this was no ordinary tale. I also liked the characters and could easily relate to them. I appreciated the sense of calm I got reading this book, yet still a riveting read. On the whole it ticks many different boxes. I look forward to reading more by this author.

Very original.

“Last night Rebekah tried to murder me again. It had been a while since I’d had that dream, not since we left Asherley”. A déjà vu moment for me as I remembered the first time I read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I would imagine, like everyone else, the first line of that book is edged on their memory. Having been raised on the original Rebecca and the film, I was somewhat reluctant to sully the memory by reading this novel, but I need not have feared. Lisa Gabriele may have Max Winter and his beautiful island Asherley as the place where the action takes place, but Rebecca is safe. However, Rebekah and the new wife are perhaps not.

Our narrator, “born on a boat, lives on an island, now an orphan, working for a witch….in the Caribbean,” meets Max Winter when he comes to the office to hire a boat. He demands that she become his sailing companion for the duration of his visit. It’s not too long before they fall madly in love and she moves back to his palatial home, Asherley. He was a widower when they met, his wife Rebekah had been killed the previous year in a horrific car accident.

Dani, Max Winter’s daughter, proves to be the one thorn she is going to have to deal with from the beginning of their marriage and yet, is this really the case? Is Max Winter the suave, kind man he appears to be?

Lisa Gabriele is a courageous author to take on this iconic storyline and add her own original pitch to it. I loved it! It grabbed me from the opening line and kept me fully engaged ‘til the final sentence. The characters are strong, real and the plot well researched.

A very clever book for anyone wanting something entirely unique to read.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I am currently working on expanding our school library's senior section after years of a dismal and uninspiring selection of books that our older readers never checked out. My job has been to seek out much more diverse, gripping and modern books that will get them into reading by appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible. This really appealed to me because of its fantastic narrative and sense of atmosphere, combined with believable characterisation and its pageturning nature. It's hard to get young people into reading and if the library is not stocking the kind of book that they might grow up to buy as adult readers then we are not really meeting their needs. I can imagine this provoking lots of discussion after finishing it and a long queue of people trying to reserve it as they've heard so much about it. Will definitely be buying a copy and know that it's going to be a very popular choice. An engrossing read that kept me up far too late to finish reading it. It certainly stood out from the other books that I was considering and I will be looking out for more from Lisa in the future!

If you've read the blurb, you know The Winters is inspired by the classic Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. What do you don't know is that Rebecca is one of my favorite books and I was a tad hesitant to read it.

However, this modern retelling of Rebecca completely blew me away.

The story starts in the Cayman Islands with our unnamed narrator. She struggles to meet ends and lives alone until she meets Max Winter. Max Winter, a wealthy senator, sweeps our narrator off her feet and then they get engaged and finally, they arrive at Asherley.

The gothic mansion is filled with memories and touches of Rebekah, the former Mrs de Winter, and that adds fuel to the already somber nature of the house and the setting. Soon, our narrator meets Dani, her soon to be step-daughter, but she isn't welcoming her with open arms either.

No sooner had she settles at her new home, things begin to go awry. Our still-unnamed narrator discovers that there are a million secrets of Asherley and is left thinking about whom she can trust.

The story kept me on my toes because I never could guess -for sure- what would happen next. The Winters by Lisa Gabriele is a perfect mix of gothic, mystery and psychological thriller for me.

I highly recommend this, and even if you haven't read Rebecca, you can still pick this up!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC!

A spooky read. This book will make you think twice before agreeing to marry a guy you've just met and question whether what you see is what's really going on. Fabulously written and scarily dark. Perfect Autumn/Winter read.

THE WINTERS is a story of family secrets, lies, and love. It is dark, suspenseful, and full of surprises and I’d like to thank Sophie and Vintage Books for providing me with a proof.

The protagonist of the novel is a young woman. We never know her name, but we know she is twenty-six years old, she lives in the Cayman Islands where she doesn’t have any family or friends. She has a job she hates and a boss who she doesn’t like. She doesn’t have any ambition or hope for the future until she meets Max Winters. He is a US senator, he is charming, handsome and he sweeps her off her feet. After a whirlwind romance she accepts his proposal and leaves the hot weather of the Caymans to move to the cold winter of Long Island where Max has a beautiful mansion, Asherley. Her dream of a happy family is quickly shattered when she meets Dani, Max fifteen-year-old daughter, who seems to be set to make her life miserable. Not only the unnamed protagonist has to deal with a moody and spoiled teenager but she also has to face the memory of Rebekah, Max’s first wife who died in an accident two years earlier.

The author created well-crafted characters that develop greatly throughout the novel and that kept me immersed in the story. I liked the protagonist of the novel. She is haunted by the memory of Rebekah, her beauty, her confidence, especially since everybody around her doesn’t miss the chance to bring her name up, so the protagonist feels insecure about her relationship with Max and her role in Dani’s life. However, even though sometimes I found her a bit naïve, she is a survivor and determined. I also liked the character of Dani who, even when she was mean and acted like a spoiled brat, I found fearless, strong, and very smart.

The novel is slow-paced, so at the beginning I had some difficulty getting into the story, but the more I read the more I was absorbed in the dark and twisty plot, the atmospheric and haunting setting, and the tension that spills through the pages. If you are looking for a chilling, compulsive, and immersive story, then THE WINTERS is a must-read!

A great story, a very modern version of Dane du Maurier’s Rebecca. It is a gripping story that brings the characters alive from a rebellious teenager, a controlling father and a poor girl from the Cayman Islands. Nothing is what it seems and the truth is a soft unimaginable. I loved it and read it in one day.

A superbly haunting and tragic retelling of Daphne Du Maurier's 'Rebecca','The Winters' is a must read for fans of gothic fiction.
Darkly disturbing with enough twists and turns to satisfy any mystery fans, I absolutely loved it. Please see my in depth review at rachelreadit.co.uk for an indepth look at this book.
Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley who provided me with a proof copy in return for an honest review.

The Winters could be best described as pleasant. Quite eerie, with lovely prose and an even pace, this book is the very definition of pleasant. It's nice. However, as a friend of mine once pointed out, you don't want someone to describe you as just 'nice'. Why not amazing? Brilliant even?

The story unfolds from our unnamed protagonist's perspective. She's a pleasant young woman, who lives on a lovely island and works hard because she's not particularly fortunate in life. When she meets Max, this pleasant, older gentleman, he sweeps her off her feet in a few short weeks.

Away he takes her, all the way to Asherly, this beautiful mansion on a private island. The staff is pleasant enough, the in-laws are friendly, and even Dani, Max's teenaged daughter is only mildly rebellious. You see, she's trying to be unpleasant, but her half assed attempts to be defiant and confrontational with the new lady of the house just seem kind of pathetic and not scary or alarming at all. Everyone keeps ignoring her antics anyway. Everyone is so bloody reasonable!

I can't say the suspense was killing me, but as time went by in the life of our characters, more and more secrets got unearthed, and the resolution was pretty neat.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style, and will be on the lookout for more stories by Lisa Gabriele.

I tend to want to go into books I review blind. But I think this might be a book I should of read up on before starting. By halfway I still had no idea where this book was going. Don’t get me wrong I was enjoying it and flying through it wanting to see where it was going.

I don’t know why but I thought this would be a dark or full of suspense but it didn’t feel like either to me. Although when things started to be revealed I was shocked. I didn’t see it coming. I did think something might happen to the unnamed woman. Which I guess I’m partially correct.

Speaking of the unnamed woman, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where the main characters name stays anonymous throughout the book. Which was interesting. I also didn’t even notice until I was typing up this post and went looking for her name.

The Winters is a new thrilling novel inspired by the classic Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. It follows the whirlwind romance between Max Winter and a young woman who falls desperately in love with him. She is whisked to Asherley, his secluded mansion in Long Island, where the memory of his first wife Rebekah still haunts the halls.

This novel did a fabulous job in capturing the soul of the story and transporting it in modern times. The narrative is supported by a well-rounded cast of characters that you cannot help but care for them. I really loved Dani’s character, Max’s daughter. She was portrayed almost psychotic but uncovering the layers of her personality and her motivations was a journey in itself. Dani is one of this unabashed characters that live life fast and hard, expressing their feelings unafraid just like her mother did before her. The late Rebekah might be dead, but her presence at the Asherley is very much alive, haunting the new fiance with her bigger than life persona.

The new fiance of Max Winter is a young woman who struggled and lost greatly in her life, unused to luxuries or wealth. The appearance of Max turns her world upside down and allured by the promise of safety, love and a good future she follows him to Asherley. She is thrust into this new world that she knows nothing about, having to navigate in the shadow of Rebekah and dealing with an angry teenager who makes her life a living hell. And we get to know this woman and what she is made of as events slowly unfold and you can feel it building up like a crescendo towards an unpredictable finality.

This is not just a gothic mystery thriller, it’s also a story about complex young women, the dynamics between sexes, the differences between classes but most of all, it’s about power. The relationships within the Asherley household felt real and a catalyst for the events unfolding in The Winters and the perfect backdrop to the narrative. The dynamics between the women was done really well.

The writing style is immersive and I fell in love with the lyrical storytelling from the first page. We are told the story through the eyes of the new fiance and her voice draws you in her world, enticing the reader with her compelling story.

The Winters is a compelling, intense novel that I can recommend to anyone to read!

Thank you for giving me the chance to read this book. I really enjoyed it and absolutely loved the last few chapters what a turn around and never even thought of that. I have reviewed everywhere for you.

Rebecca is one of my favourite books so I was a little nervous about reading The Winters which is based on the classic story. I needn’t have worried though for whilst there are elements of Rebecca in the story the author has added a modern slant which makes it very original. These are done by firstly moving the setting of the book to The Hamptons giving the book quite an American feel. The inclusion of a daughter rather also adds a new edge to the book and helps provide an enemy to the main character instead of the housekeeper in the original story.

The main character is a very fascinating one as, like in Rebecca, we never find out her name but follow the story entirely from her point of view. She comes across as being very innocent and unworldly which immediately made me suspicion, wondering whether she had an ulterior motive. I was very interested to find out more about her. The daughter is another very interesting and colourful character whose hatred for her new stepmother is almost palpable. I wasn’t sure whose side I was on throughout the book so I sometimes enjoyed the arguments between the two of them.

The plot is quite fast paced with a creeping sense of unease which gradually increases as the book develops. The tension is also racked up as we learn more about the characters and their stormy relationship with each other. There is a definite feeling that something has to happen to break the tension and atmosphere so the reader is on edge trying to figure out what it will be. I often found that what I thought would happen didn’t and the actual twists took me by surprise which I thought was very cleverly done!

This is the author’s debut novel and I’m very interested in reading more from her in the future. If you like atmospheric, tension filled books with a gothic feel to them or a different take on a classic book then you’ll enjoy The Winters.

Huge thanks to Mia from Vintage books for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

The Winters is loosely based on Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier a book which I thought I had read but hadn’t. It takes place initially in the Caymans where the unnamed young woman who falls in love with Max Winter lives. Her life has been tough, orphaned and having a slightly abrasive employer she falls head over heels in love with Max and agrees to move to his home in New York with him. But she is unprepared for what she faces.
It doesn’t take her long to feel apprehensive. Memories of Rebekah are all over the house, photos are everywhere and all her possessions. I had a lot of sympathy for her, not knowing where she could go and, at first,having little to do. Max’s teenage daughter is very unfriendly, often rude and mostly out of control. But you do see a different side to her when she starts to show warmth towards her future step mother. The problem is you don’t know if she can be trusted. Or if anybody else can.
Even though I haven’t read Rebecca I do know what it about so had a good idea what to expect. But with the modern slant, mobile phones, social media and female independence it feels different. I liked the different setting, the way the future Mrs Winter is described without being given an identity. It’s very hard writing a review about a character who has no name.
The novel is clever, it must take a lot of courage to recreate a classic novel and make it modern-day thriller.

The blurb for this book intrigued me and i did recognize similar themes to the story Rebecca, but i dove into this book. I must admit thought the story is very similar it is not exactly the same i can see i as being a big inspiration to the author in her work. So i was left feeling a bit like i was reading a "modern" version of Rebecca so it just didn't feel as enjoyable for me i am afraid.