First off, when I received this book from Penguin Random House Canada, I fell in love with the cover!! (Yes, Guardian, I am going to comment on the beautiful cover because book covers are a perfect, artistic representation for both the author and the story, so tough luck). So, don’t be fooled by the beautiful cover of this book… because the story within is mysterious, obscure, and curious. I opened up the book, read the first chapter, and was hooked.

It starts off with the description of Mr. Winters, his castle, and his relationship with the protagonist. Then, it dives into the history of their relationship, and finally brings us to the present – the protagonist and Mr. Winters move into the Asherley Estate, and the protagonist meets his daughter, Dani Winters. Some creepy events take place, and the protagonist endures the bullying from her step daughter. This book had major Jane Eyre vibes. For those of you that don’t know, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is my favourite book, and I actually studied the book for a whole semester! After reading Jane Eyre, I read and studied Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

This book is a feminist and anti-colonial response to Jane Eyre. It describes Mr. Rochester’s marriage from the point of view of his mad wife, Antoinette Cosway. Antoinette is Rhys’ version of Bronte’s devilish madwoman in the attic. Antoinette’s story is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to a certain unnamed English gentleman, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, and then takes her to England. Antoinette is caught in an oppressive patriarchal society in which she neither fully belongs to Europe nor Jamaica. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power relationships between men and women and develops postcolonial themes, such as racism, displacement and assimilation. (Goodreads.com)

So, the reason why I bring this up is because The Winters is so alike to both of these beloved novels/stories: a strange estate, an independent woman who fell in love, an odd, rich gentleman with a secret past, and an eerie setting.

As I continued to read the story, the events taking place were getting spookier, stranger, and overall interesting. The most interesting part of the book, is that as a reader, we never find out the protagonist’s name. Through dialogue, description, thought process, her name is never spoken. I loved this part about the book because it added so much more mystery to the entire story.

After reading this book, I was so lucky to have the author, Lisa Gabriele answer a few questions! Check it out:

Who’s your favourite author?

I have to say Daphne du Maurier, and not just because my book, The Winters, is inspired by her best known novel, Rebecca, but because of the sheer range of her work. She has written speculative fiction, historical fiction, suspense, horror, romance, essays, and biography. But there’s a through line and it’s her impeccable language and surprising plots. She’s a damn great storyteller.

Favourite book or genre to read?

I have a new favourite book all the time. Right now it’s Less by Andrew Sean Greer, tied with Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which you’ll be hearing a lot about before its publication in March, 2019. I tore through both books recently, and they left me breathless and excited about the possibilities of writing meaningful fiction that has wide commercial appeal.

When was the moment you realised that you loved literature?

I say this all the time but I am a far more passionate and talented reader than writer. I love writing, but I fell in love with literature as a reader first, devouring them once I learned how to read, and I’ve never stopped.

What made you want to be a writer?

It was such a natural progression, I don’t ever remember not writing. Since I was eight years old it’s been a compulsion. I have filled notebooks with short stories and have written in diaries well before I ever published a thing. What truly makes me a writer is an inherent need to work something out on paper, usually through made up people. Or to bring to life the stories that seem to float in the ether around me. Writing is also a form of entertaining myself, something I have always enjoyed doing.

What inspired you to write your latest book, The Winters? While I was reading it, I got MAJOR Jane Eyre vibes!

Funny you should say that. My book is a response to du Maurier’s Rebecca, which itself was a response to Jane Eyre. My mother was the one who introduced me to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie version of Rebecca first, and whenever I miss her I reach for it. In the fall of 2016, in the despairing days of the U.S. election, I bought some ice cream and threw in the DVD to drown out the bad news. But this time, instead of comforted, it left me feeling deeply uneasy. I had to remind myself that in Daphne du Maurier’s book Maxim de Winter killed his sexually rebellious first wife, a fact that Hitchcock, due to Production Codes at the time, erased. I suddenly felt this strong desire to avenge Rebecca and punish Maxim. So I guess you could say nostalgia inspired me to reread the book, but anger drove me to write mine.

I found it interesting that we never know the protagonist’s name in the book…what’s the reason?

This was a trope I borrowed from Rebecca, which also has an unnamed narrator, mostly just to see if I could do it, write a book with a nameless narrator. Needless to say it was much harder than I thought it would be.

Did your writing process change at all when you began writing more books?

Luckily, I have always been disciplined. I get up in the morning and have breakfast and then just start writing. I write for four to six hours and then take a nap. Then I try to exercise before supper. I keep my schedule light when I’m writing, so I don’t break a mood. The thing that helps me the most is having a deadline.

Can we expect any more books from you coming up?

Yes, I’m laying the tracks for my next book now, which I think will be in the same suspenseful vein as The Winters, this one about an older women, newly sober, who helps out a younger one, who may not be who she says she is.

Do you have any advice for young writers out there?

Read like crazy, read everything. When you’re not writing, you must be reading. And if you’re not reading, you must be writing.

Gabriele’s novel The Winters is now available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers. You can also visit her website: www.lisagabriele.com

Have you read Lisa Gabriele’s The Winters or any of her other books? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

“From the brilliant first line to the shattering conclusion, The Winters will draw you in and leave you breathless. . . . A must read.” —Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a spellbindingly suspenseful novel set in the moneyed world of the Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that can’t be escaped

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell. She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family: Max and Dani circle each other like cats, a dynamic that both repels and fascinates her, and he harbors political ambitions with which he will allow no woman—alive or dead—to interfere.

As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets—the kind of secrets that could kill her, too. The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything.

The post Interview: Lisa Gabriele, Author of ‘The Winters’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Read on to discover our picks and tell us in the comments below which one you are most excited for!

The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox
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New Oldbury, 1821 In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end…

A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts by Therese Anne Fowler
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The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family in as they rule Gilded-Age New York, from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Winters by Lisa Gabriele
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell.

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
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The much-anticipated new novel from the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of 1Q84 and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Killing Commendatore is an epic tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art–as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby–and a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers.

The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher
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A captivating novel following the exploits of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the forgotten and rebellious daughter of one of America’s greatest political dynasties.

House of Gold by Natasha Solomons
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From the New York Times bestselling author of The House at Tyneford, an epic family saga about a headstrong Austrian heiress who will be forced to choose between the family she’s made and the family that made her at the outbreak of World War I.

The Reckoning by John Grisham
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Pete Banning was Clanton’s favourite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbour, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946. he rose early, drove into town, walked into the Church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn’t shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete’s only statement about it—to the sheriff, to his defense attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends, and to the people of Clanton—was “I have nothing to say.” And so the murder of the esteemed Reverend Bell became the most mysterious and unforgettable crime Ford County had ever known.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
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In the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.

You Were Always Mine by Nicole Baart
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A harrowing story of tenacious love and heartbreaking betrayal, You Were Always Mine is about the wars we wage to keep the ones we love close, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult.

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell
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When a mutilated body is found hanging in a seedy motel in Philadelphia, forensics specialist Liam Dwyer assumes the crime scene will be business as usual. Instead, the victim turns out to be a woman he’d had an affair with before breaking it off to save his marriage. But there’s a bigger problem: Liam has no memory of where he was or what he did on the night of the murder.

We Were Mothers by Katie Sise
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A scandalous revelation is about to devastate a picturesque town where the houses are immaculate and the neighborhoods are tightly knit. Devoted mother Cora O’Connell has found the journal of her friend Laurel’s daughter—a beautiful college student who lives next door—revealing an illicit encounter. Hours later, Laurel makes a shattering discovery of her own: her daughter has vanished without a trace. Over the course of one weekend, the crises of two close families are about to trigger a chain reaction that will expose a far more disturbing web of secrets. Now everything is at stake as they’re forced to confront the lies they have told in order to survive.

Winter In Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
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Irene Steele’s idyllic life-house, husband, family is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death. He was found on St. John island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband’s death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John’s.

A Cloud In The Shape of A Girl by Jean Thompson
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In A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl we see these women and their trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality. Spanning from World War II to the present, Thompson reveals a matrilineal love story that is so perfectly grounded in our time—a story of three women regressing, stalling, and yes, evolving, over decades. One of the burning questions she asks is: by serving her family, is a woman destined to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, or can she transcend the expectations of a place, and a time? Can she truly be free?

Little by Edward Carey
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The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.  In the tradition of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Edward Carey’s Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel–a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
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From the New York Times bestselling co-author of It Devours! and Welcome to Night Vale comes a fast-paced thriller about a truck driver searching across America for the wife she had long assumed to be dead.

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay
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The Rain Watcher is a powerful family drama set in Paris as the Malegarde family gathers to celebrate the father’s 70th birthday. Their hidden fears and secrets are slowly unraveled as the City of Light undergoes a stunning natural disaster. Seen through the eyes of charismatic photographer Linden Malegarde, the youngest son, all members of the family will have to fight to keep their unity against tragic circumstances.

Check out what else is coming out this month on our Goodreads list!

What book are you most excited for? Tell us in the comments below!

The post October Book Releases: Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.