Sometimes evil is easy to identify, and that's how we are misled in Rachel Hawkins' latest thriller, THE HEIRESS. Camden McTavish fled the tiny town of Tavistock, North Carolina, where the ancestral family manor, Ashby House, was situated in the midst of beautiful mountains. His wife, Jules, doesn't really know why he left the home where his adopted mother, Ruby, raised him. His family was the wealthiest in the state, and Cam was the recipient of the whole estate when his mother died. But he rejected his inheritance and fled, ending up in California, where he met Jules.

The couple now live in a small rented house in Colorado. When Cam's cousin Ben asks him to return because there is business he is needed for, including upkeep of the huge estate, he reluctantly agrees. Jules is excited to visit there, and Hawkins carefully reveals that there is more to her interest than we know. In fact, there is much that Hawkins is hiding. Important facts are carefully doled out bit by bit. The ultimate effect isn't one shocking twist as we might find in some suspense novels, but rather a series of small revelations that serve to change our view of most of the main characters.

"[W]e are left wondering who the good guys are and what the truth is. It's an interesting point, and Hawkins has us thinking carefully about our own truths and how they influence our lives."

At the center of the story is Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, whose nickname, only muttered in undertones, is "Kill-more," in honor of the four husbands who all died under quasi-suspicious circumstances. Ruby's own background is mysterious, and as the beloved daughter to the wealthy McTavish family, she was kidnapped when she was just a toddler. After almost a year, private detectives hired by her father located her in the South and brought her home. Her younger sister Nelle, a nasty and bitter woman, doesn't believe it was Ruby who was returned to the family. But their father left his entire estate to Ruby, and Nelle refuses to leave the family home. So she and her two grandchildren, also extremely unpleasant types, live there.

We learn more about Ruby from her own hand, through a series of letters she writes to an unknown person. In them, she explains the details of her marriages and her relationships with her father and sister. There are also pieces from society magazines about Ruby and her husbands. Eventually, we are able to figure out who Ruby really is, but Hawkins keeps a few secrets hidden.

When Jules and Cam return to Ashby, the welcome is far from warm. But in the acrimonious exchanges between Cam and his cousins, bitter truths are revealed and old animosities renewed. The surprises that Hawkins discloses have us questioning everything we thought we knew about these characters. What is the truth surrounding Ruby, Cam and Jules?

Hawkins forces us to consider this question: What are the truths that we can live with and the truths that we don't need to know? As Cam shares his belief that the truth doesn't matter in the end, he says, "The truth isn't some finite thing, it's what we all choose to believe." Is the truth some random fact from the past, or is it who and what we are now? In THE HEIRESS, we are left wondering who the good guys are and what the truth is. It's an interesting point, and Hawkins has us thinking carefully about our own truths and how they influence our lives.