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FICTION
The Fiction Writer
Jillian Cantor
Simon & Schuster, $32.99
We are all fascinated by the lives of the rich and famous — we will grab at any chance of proximity to them. For Olivia Fitzgerald, who has reached a slump in her career, a write-for-hire project commissioned by a devilishly handsome billionaire is too good to refuse.
Besides, Henry Asherwood III – “Ash”, as he likes to be called — lives in Malibu. And he’s twice been crowned People’s Sexist Man Alive. As she’s newly single, the project should not only boost Olivia’s career but her love life too. So she exchanges the cold winds of Boston for the damp salty air and cliffside views of Malibu.
Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter in Alfred Hitchcock’s film of Rebecca. Jillian Cantor retells the story of Daphe du Maurier’s novel in her new book.Credit: Silver Screen Collection
Ash employs Olivia under the impression that she’s an expert on Daphne du Maurier. Her second book, Becky — a commercial flop – told the story of du Maurier’s Rebecca from the perspective of the ghost of the first Mrs de Winter. Ash believes that du Maurier stole the story from his grandmother and he wants Olivia to write the story of her betrayal.
”Grandmother Emilia is never more than a footnote, but maybe you can change that?” he incites our heroine. Ash is still tender with grief after his wife died in a car accident the previous year. He spends most of his days inside the walls of his Tony-Stark-like cliff-side glass mansion, ordering his staff around while standing around looking very, very hot.
Jillian Cantor wants to make sure we don’t forget his hot privilege. “I felt acutely aware of his stunning blue eyes, the way his perfect biceps filled out the sleeves of his fitted tee,” Olivia says.
Ash uses this privilege to take advantage of her. He whisks her away in his black Porsche to a vineyard to get her blissfully inebriated. He takes her on coastal walking trails he used to share with his wife. He’s passing time, clearly trying to distract her from the task he has paid her to do.
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Before long, he convinces her to stay in his mansion. But strange things begin to happen. She drinks coffee offered to her by Ash’s housekeeper and mysteriously passes out. She finds out that his deceased wife, Angelica, had been rumoured to have been shopping a book proposal before she died; “probably a juicy tell-all”, Olivia’s agent speculates. Did she have secrets he didn’t want her to expose?