Dreaming of Manderley

December 1, 2017
A screenwriter's assistant, naive and hapless, falls for a wealthy Frenchman in Cannes.Brown (Owning It, 2017, etc.) lets us know from the start that this is a contemporary retelling of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. But what dates the narrative, apart from the prudish heroine, are constant references to studio-era Hollywood, with the occasional mention of contemporary actors only highlighting the novel's peculiar dustiness. Perhaps in further ill-conceived homage to last century's gothic genre, the heroine, Manderley, is a teary-eyed, put-upon orphan. She is also clumsy and has a tiresome inner life and limited language skills. The last is particularly odd since she has a degree in literature and is praised for her way with words by the hero, Xavier de Maloret. He is equally flat, appearing without explanation every time Manderley is in danger, spilling something, or stumbling. He also broods in five-minute intervals between taking her on long drives and kissing her ears and neck. Their monthlong acquaintance involves almost no other sexual intimacy, and after they elope, she is panicky about the wedding night. The attitude makes little sense in a contemporary romance with a 20-something who works in the movie industry; perhaps it should have been a time-travel romance where a sheltered Victorian woman is dropped into the modern world? This could have justified a conversation in which Manderley says the fight for women's rights has been detrimental to them. On the plus side, it distracts from other problems: the hero's annoying repetition of the endearment "ma bichette," the heroine's casual mention of servants when she was growing up in her antebellum-era house in the American South, Brown's wholesale retaining of Du Maurier's misogynistic portrait of the hero's first wife, and her labeling of a bad guy as a Romani/gypsy.A blend of cliched Euro-travel brochure, celebrity fan fiction, middle school French lesson, and cultural obliviousness, this neogothic provides zero thrills.

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March 26, 2018
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. Agent: Ethan Ellenberg, Ethan Ellenberg Literary.