For Mystics & Romantics

If you like Daphne Du Maurier (author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn), you'll love Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife.  Like the novel Rebecca, A Reliable Wife is written in the tradition of Gothic Romance:  it features an old (haunted) house, darkness, death, revenge and lust.  Unlike Rebecca, these characteristics take on more contemporary forms:  the ghosts aren't apparitions, they're psychological; further, the romance takes on a much sexier description.  It's because of these contemporary features, which Goolrick utilizes to progress the storyline, that the novel reads in a quick, gripping fashion (I began and finished it in about 7 hours while on a flight).

The premise of the story revolves around an older single (and very wealthy) man's desire for companionship.  He thus puts an ad in the newspaper calling for "a reliable wife".  The woman who answers his ad, Catherine Land, has various motives for entering into the relationship--but none are so devious as the slow and methodical arsenic poisoning of her new husband.  The catch:  Ralph knows full well of her acts and the motives behind them.  The joy for the reader is that we do not; in fact, Goolrick leads us to the end of the novel with unexpected twists and turns that I'm not about to reveal here.  A Reliable Wife is a juicy good read, perfect for independent reading or a book club.