So says her employer to the protagonist of this spellbinding novel which echoes Daphne Du Maurier's classic, Rebecca. Her future husband is the renowned writer and infamous widower, Max Midwinter, whose first wife, Rebecca, is a haunting presence in her life. The protagonist's apprehension is intensified by the painfully accurate portrait of her new home which Rebecca had drawn in her autobiographical novel. Worst of all, the characters Rebecca portrays are real and the new wife must deal with them in the flesh. Meanwhile, a new biography of Max is released which strongly implicates him in Rebecca's death.

Maureen Freely is a novelist and a professor at the University of Warwick.