If anyone selects a Daphne DuMaurier book for their club I highly recommend doing some research on the author to share with your book club members. She had a fascinating life!

This was a fun book to read. I liked the main character and the setting. It was suspenseful and exciting. The characters were well developed. Don't be fooled by the cover. It looks like a cheesy romance novel. And although I checked off 'romantic' it is not at all a mushy love story. There's just a atypical romantic relationship that develops between two characters.

Mary complied with her dying mother's wishes that she move in with her Aunt Patience. Little did Mary's mother know what that wish held for Mary.

Those wishes turned out to be very unpleasant for Mary. Mary had to endure her uncle's ?horribly ?mean disposition, his illegal activities, his mistreatment of Aunt Patience, and ?Mary's being pulled into it all.

Mary saw things at Jamaica Inn that she had never seen before. For one thing?, this Inn never had any guests ?except for unsavory characters.

The setting of JAMAICA INN is perfect for this gothic, dark story line. Ms. Du Maurier did it again with her detailed writing and pull-you-in tale. She keeps everything dark enough, subtle? ?enough, and interesting enough that even though you dislike what is going on and will definitely ?dislike ?Uncle Joss, you can't stop reading.

?I literally hated Uncle Joss because of his cruel, rude personality. I felt sorry for Aunt Patience because of her fear of Uncle Joss and her reluctance to leave. I feared for Mary's safety in this desolate, dreary place.

The book was a perfect Du Maurier book. The entire book was suspenseful, tense, and had a sinister tone.

JAMAICA INN is a book I would recommend to those who know Du Maurier's writing even though it took me this long to know the book was out there and to read it. :)

If you don't know Du Maurier's writing, you will want to.

Enjoy and read JAMAICA INN when you can. 5/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.?

The flowery (for lack of a better word) language that Daphne DuMaurier uses in JAMAICA INN (as well as her other novels) and the gender discrimination scattered here and there irritated me in 2016 while I accepted both when I read DuMaurier's REBECCA in 1969. But, after a while, I just enjoyed the story and accepted it as it was written in the 1940s.

Mary, the main character of JAMAICA INN, has come to Jamaica Inn to live with her aunt and uncle after her mother's death. Her uncle turns out to be a horrible man who Mary comes to detest. Mary learns, usually through deliberate snooping but sometimes against her will, her uncle's business.

DuMaurier clearly intended to show that Mary is above the usual role cut out for the 19th century woman. Even so, in order to enjoy this novel, the reader still has to accept that it was written with 1940s sensibilities.