Author: Luke Devenish
ISBN: 9781922052155
RRP: $29.99
The Secret Heiress is an historical novel set across two distinct timelines a generation apart in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It is an Australian novel and I must admit to finding the look back at our country in that time period fascinating.
I am quite lost as to where to start this review, and how to continue it for that matter. There are so many dark and twisted roads to travel, so many suspenseful turns and possible explanations that it would be easy to unwittingly add spoilers and I would really rather avoid that.
I read an advanced uncorrected proof thanks to Simon & Schuster which has a letter from author Luke Devenish to readers of the proof. It tells us a little of the inspiration and gives a little background. Summersby House is a fictional mansion at the heart of the story but it was inspired by real houses Devenish visited.
In 1886 young Ida Garfield is employed by the elegant Miss Matilda Gregory to begin work at Summersby House but before she can start the news reaches her that Miss Gregory has passed away. Not on to be deterred from a path that seemed heaven sent Ida attends the funeral hoping that someone will still want to employ her at Summersby House. By all accounts Ida isn’t a bright girl, all the brains went to her younger sister Evie and the money Ida will earn in service will go to furthering Evie’s education; what Ida lacks in brains is more than made up for with inquisitiveness. She asks many questions and is always trying to learn new things, I think she is brighter than she’s given credit for and it’s just that hers is a different type of bright.
Ida attends the funeral, hoping someone will still want her at Summersby. Samuel Hackett, fiance of the late Miss Gregory, expresses the need for a housemaid – and a friend. She heads straight to Summersby to begin her duties as housemaid.
Summersby is not at all what Ida was expecting; for such a huge house it is extremely understaffed and that is only the beginning of the odd happenings.
The reading of the late Miss Gregory’s will uncovers a secret deception and brings home the rightful heir to Summersby House, her twin sister Matilda. Things started to get a little twisty here. The two Miss Gregorys were Matilda and Margaret, and it seems this second will states that the deceased Miss Gregory was really Margaret, and Matilda has been incarcerated since the death of her father. A situation that is quickly rectified with Matilda returned to Summersby with her ladies maid Miss Aggie Marshall.
The second timeline in 1903-1904 sees young Biddy Macbryde, an imaginative storyteller, lose her employment with the Reverend Flowers. Her storytelling gets her in too deep one time too many and with no family to return to she sets off aimlessly in need of a new plan. A plan that sees her end up at Summersby House and eventually employed as a companion.
Flicking between timelines is quite well spaced and with both storylines based in Summersby House you find yourself with questions and answers from opposite times which is quite intriguing in itself.
The whole situation with Matilda and Margaret got a little too much for me at times, I couldn’t work out who was who and who we were supposed to be referring to. I was sure there were a couple of instances that the incorrect name was used, and put it down to the fact that my week has been pretty all over the place so could be my headspace or it could be because I was reading an ARC.
The Secret Heiress is intriguing and engaging from start to finish. I had to keep reading to find out what was really going on through it all. There were hints dropped but they weren’t always clear at the time and you needed to continue to find where the pieces fell together.
There is deception on deception and it continues to raise more and more questions about who was in on what, and who was deceiving who.
I loved the intrigue, I loved the twins and the way they were integral to the story. I love Biddy, who is a fanciful storyteller with a story for every occasion yet abhorred dishonesty and lies, always wanted to get to the bottom of a situation and uncover the truth.
There are twists upon twists contained in this book so I’m hard pressed trying not to spoil it. There were some elements of the story I guessed early on but the bulk of it really did hit me from left field, or left me wondering how on earth that could possibly be because it didn’t match up with what I thought because of something else that had happened.
The characters are well drawn and three dimensional in the moment but there’s not a lot of back story – which is exactly how it needs to be to continue the intrigue.
The look at the time, and the town and the setting is glorious. I can’t believe that in a small town where gossip abounds all of this managed to go on right under their noses, but that was addressed in the beginning by the sometime cook Mrs Jack when she said they were a law unto themselves up at Summersby House.
The Secret Heiress is an interesting, engaging, vivid and twisted historical look at the dark goings on in Summersby House and I would recommend it to all.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster 30 of our Beauty and Lace Club Members will be reading The Secret Heiress so please be aware there may be spoilers in the comments.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
This novel is a maze of twists and turns mixed in with some Australian Gothic, with all the things you might expect: a mysterious house with a magnificent name, upstairs downstairs class wars cast of characters, identical twins, a puzzle about inheritance, a love triangle, a lunatic asylum, a suicide, and a mystery that ends with a mother-and-child reunion and an unexpected legacy. But it’s all a little too formulated and a little too impossible. The mystery between the twins becomes both heavy and confusing. The heart of the novel is Ida the housemaid, young and naive and as vulnerable as any female servant in a grand 19th-century household: at the mercy of the family, especially of the villian who has some strange hold over the master of the house. The story just did not seem believable to me and too long.
Who knows how you even go about starting a review for this book. I’ve read all of the comments above and they all basically say the same thing – that it’s hard to say anything without giving too much away. They also say how difficult the book was to read and I have to confess that I felt the same. I had a migraine during the time that I was reading this book and I wondered whether that had confused me. Every time that I thought that I’d finally worked out what was actually going on, things changed. This was both exciting and frustrating! I enjoyed The Secret Heiress enough to really want to keep reading it and work out the secrets, but I found that I really had to pick my times to read it. Trying to read it over a coffee with my three children home during the school holidays was not the best idea! In the end I actually got out my pen and paper and wrote notes of what I thought was happening to help my thinking. Best of all, I think I worked it out and got it right! I’m waiting for my mother-in-law to have her turn at reading it, so that we can check my cheat sheet and see if she agrees with me.
I loved the characters of Ida and Biddy and cheered on their clever thinking and persistence. I didn’t like Samuel or Baxter, but appreciate their roles in the story. Who comes up with these ideas?! An amazing story that I was really glad that I was chosen to read. Thank you Beauty and Lace for another great novel >:o)
I think this is the first time ever that I’ve had to say I didn’t much enjoy a book club book.
“The Secret Heiress” is essentially a gothic with an Australian setting. That was tantalising, and I settled down expecting to enjoy it. But to be truly successful, a gothic needs at least three things: a sense of impending doom which may or may not be averted; people whose motives are murky, where you can’t be sure whether they’re working for or against the heroine; and a heroine to root for.
And sadly, for me, this novel didn’t deliver. The sense of impending doom, yes. But I was less than half way into the book when I’d worked out what was happening, who was doing it, how, and who the secret heiress was. The “bad” guys and the “good” guys were pretty obvious. I didn’t find either Ida or Biddy particularly attractive characters – Ida was just too dim, and Biddy too dishonest, for me to really connect with them.
In consequence I found this pretty hard going. It’s well written, and has a good sense of place and time. However, without a character I was cheering for, and with the central mysteries already obvious, it was painfully slow.
Readers who don’t work things out so quickly, or who find either Ida or Biddy more appealing, will probably enjoy this. It’s a type of novel not often set in Australia, and the glimpses of historical fact are well placed and not overdone. For example, the language is largely modern although a few expressions from the time period are used, carefully, in a context which allows easy understanding. The writing style is smooth and unobtrusive and flows well. The characterisation is strong; although I didn’t like the central characters, they were well drawn and came alive.
Although I hesitate to recommend it, as I didn’t enjoy it, there should be quite a lot of people who will enjoy it.
I was excited to finally get my hands on ‘The Secret Heiress’. What a great storyline. A period piece introducing characters from 1886 and then linking characters to a later 1903. Although at first you didn’t realise the link with these characters until later in the book. The storyline is intriguing, based on twin girls who through their lived swapped their identities. A truly fascinating ending with many twists and turns. The storyline certainly pulled you in but I did find the swapping from one period of time and characters to a different period of time and characters, difficult to follow. I started to get confused throughout the book as to who was who. If the author perhaps told the whole story of 1886 and then followed on with the story of 1903, it would have made far more sense to the reader and left us less frustrated.
Having said that I greatly loved the terrific storyline, the Aussie flavour of speech which the reader could truly relate to, and the fabulous ending.
Overall a terrific read. Thank you Beauty and Lace and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this fabulous book.
I am always so grateful for Beauty and Lace and Simon and Schuster because every book is such a different adventure especially The Secret Heiress.
I eased into the first chapter of the book called IDA which was set in December 1886 but when it started the second chapter I started to get confused only to look back and realise it had gone from 1886 to 1903. I must say I really enjoyed the character Biddy, she was very outspoken but brave in other ways through her hard life. I related to her feeling of being on her own when she was so young but I wasnt game enough to be as upfront and cheeky as her..
If Matilda and Margaret had totally different names it might have helped aid my confusion or flipping back pages. I did enjoy this book as it was very different to others I have read recently and Luke Devendish wrote it well because I could definately feel like I was back in time with the way the characters spoke, very unlike today haha 🙂 It was nice to hear of Ballarat and places like Melbourne as it is more relatable.
Definately a book you have to read in peace and I did read it mainly at night in bed next to a snoring husband whom I had to nudge every now and then 😉
I loathed and loved some of the characters which drew me in wanting to read more. Luke Devenish is a talented writer with a good difference.
thanks again 🙂
Oh my goodness I 100% loved reading this book.
I found that I easily became attached to the two ladies. Ida who was in the late 1800’s and Biddy in the early 1900’s. Ida whos family are depending on her to get a job in a large house so that she can help fund her young sisters schooling. Ida feels that her hopes of a job in Summersby House have been dashed by the sudden death of the Lady of the house but she holds on to a small slice of hope and attends the funeral and is thrilled to find that her services are still required at the House and she is required to start straight away. She is pleased to have her job yet she is lonely as there are no other young female staff members. Still she does her best. She cant help herself and eavesdrops for entertainment when she gets that chance and one day overhearing a conversation between the Lawyer and the Fiance of the Late Lady of the house, she hears that the Lady of the house was not who everyone believed she was and she was infact pretending to be her twin sister who has spent time in a mental home. Her twin is the rightful owner of the Estate and everything changes when she rightfully comes home.
Biddy was working in the home of Reverend Flowers and to colour her life she delights in making up stories. Her story telling gets her into trouble and she then loses her job and find that she is to leave without warning.
I liked flicking between different characters indifferent time frames and I loved the twists and turns.
Author Luke Devenish is someone I am keen to keep my eyes open for and I would very much love to read more of his work.
I found this book so very easy to read.
Thank you Beauty and Lace. This was very much a great long weekend read
Thank you so much for giving me this book to review. What an absolute pleasure it was to read from beginning to end.
I love how this is split against two generations and more importantly, mother and daughter.
The Secret Heiress kept my mind guessing as to what was going to happen next, and to whom the villians were really going to be.
The two stories are about Ida and Biddy, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s respectively. It is really about the story of Summersbys House and the occupants at different times and how they all come together at the end.
I was really enthralled by the twists and turns, and there were quite a few. I really dug my claws into this book and what a rewarding read.
For a book that is set back in time this was written really well. I would love to read anything more written by this author.
I cant speak highly enough about this book.
Thank you for the copy of The Secret Heiress to review.
The story is Australian which is a nice change for historic fiction, but relatable to many countries.
It was set in two different times – 1886, with Ida being employed by Matilda Gregory at Summersby House and then her mistress dying prior to employment. Ida ended up at Summersby and finds the place has many secrets and not many people. The second time was 1903 and is about Biddy who also ends up at Summersby as a companion to Sybil. There are still secrets there, although different in nature both stories manage to intertwine.
I don’t want to reveal any plot, but there were many mysteries we had to try and work out, what was happening with Matilda and her twin sister Margaret and how they kept people intrigued. Then Sybil was kept at the house mostly and being brought up in a certain way.
I love that Ida and Biddy were tenacious in their investigations even if I didn’t agree with their methods. I did guess some of the plot twists, but there were still things I was learning till the end – and I loved it that way.
I was a bit confused with Matilda and Margaret with their names, but I think that could have been part of the plan.
Overall, I loved the mystery of the book as it unfolded and got more and more involved with both storylines, and loved that we found out what we needed to by the end.
Thank you again.
I was eager to delve into the pages of this beautiful piece of Australian gothic fiction by Luke Devenish. Gothic fiction is a genre I really enjoy and it was a refreshing change to see a novel released written by a male author and an Australian. The Secret Heiress contains a comprehensive list of key ingredients that are essential to gothic fiction – a grandiose house, a setting with brooding undertones, a mystery to unlock, an inheritance to claim, inquisitive servants and the added layer of an enigmatic set of twins. The Secret Heiress contains an engaging, split style narrative. The first follows a young woman in 1886 named Ida, who begins employment as a housemaid at Summersby House, which is based in north central Victoria. The sense of jubilation that Ida feels in securing a job at the opulent Summersby establishment is soon quashed when her mistress is found tragically dead. While staff at Summersby House begin to retreat, Ida decides to stay. Ida’s decision to stay on at Summersby House is defined by unexplained occurrences, revealing complex relationships and layered secrets. The other narrative moves forward in time to approximately 17 years later. Summersby House still stands, but awaits a secret heiress. When young Biddy makes the move from the city of Melbourne to the country, she finds herself seeking employment at Summersby House. Biddy soon finds herself embroiled in the dark secrets of the past linked to Summersby House. It appears Biddy may the key to settling the ghosts of Summersby House’s past and unlocking the identity of the owner of the fortune attached to the house.
The Secret Heiress is fine addition to the genre of Australian gothic fiction. Luke Devenish is an accomplished author, his prose was a joy to read. I particularly enjoyed his descriptions of Summersby House, its setting and unique quirks. Devenish sets the tone of the novel very well, I felt a strong sense of foreboding coming from the pages, which is an essential aspect of any othic themed novel. The characters in this novel were backed by strong stories that the reader cannot help but feel invested in. I felt the strength in the novel lies in the dichotomy between the upstairs and downstairs staff at Summersby House, which was presented well by Devenish. The love triangle that occurs in the novel adds further complication, angst and deceit to the list of elements that combine to make this book a great read. The narrative itself was engaging overall, it reminded me of a good old fashioned Agatha Christie style mystery, which complex layers thrown in for added reading pleasure. There were times however where I felt rather perplexed with the mystery elements, especially the twins aspect of the novel. I had to really work hard at keeping track of who was who identity wise. Thankfully this was resolved with an ending that was both satisfying and put my previous confusions aside.
The Secret Heiress was a fairly challenging read, but I am happy for the experience as I was rewarded with the opportunity to engage with a novel that perfectly defines the genre of Australian gothic fiction.
I wish to thank Beauty and Lace for a copy of this book to review.
Similar to other readers, I found the story visually beautiful and conjured up vivid imagery in my mind. It reminded me a little of The secret Garden, mysteries wrapped up in a home that became the keeper of the secrets. Unfortunately I also found the story somewhat complicated and convoluted and the second half of the book became more difficult to read. The characters were well written and I got a real sense of the period and customs.