Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Sequel
Review: Mrs. deWinter is well-written and interesting. Though I would have preferred some happiness in the lives of the characters created by Ms. Du Maurier, I believe this author did preserve the dark and moody aspects of the original novel. I read most books I like more than once, but I probably won't read this again because I prefer happier books. However, this story is believable as far as what happened to this family and their acquaintances, and the information is worth knowing. I did like this book and recommend it to fans of Rebecca, and if I thought I would read it again I would have given it 5 stars. I especially like the fact that we still do not know, and will never know, Mrs. deWinter's first name. This preserves the continuing mystery surrounding this woman and the course her life has taken.
Rating:
Summary: No DuMaurier, but sequel is just fine
Review: 'Rebecca' is my favorite book. So of course I was thrilled when the sequel came out. And I think Hill did a great job capturing the characters. I, too, hated the ending, but understood why she did it: she wanted to make the characters free once and for all. But they will never be free of Rebecca.
I am glad to have this in my library. I think it is a fine addition to the original. Susan Hill may not be Daphne DuMaurier, but I still got chills down my back reading the story. Same way I did when reading 'Rebecca.' We may never be able to go back to Manderley again, but Cobbett's Brake is waiting with open arms. Go to them!
Rating: 
Summary: Back to Manderley
Review: After the 1938 success of Daphne duMaurier's Rebecca (Victor Gollancz, 1938, republished by Avon in 1971), adaptations quickly followed of this dark tale of jealousy and innocence, murder and obssession. Following Orson Well' radio broadcast, Alfred Hitchcock produced a film version in 1940 starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. It was only a matter of time before readers were given a sequel and the first emerged six years after duMaurier's death when British novelist Susan Hill was comissioned to pen Mrs. DeWinter (William Morrow and Company, 1993).
Hill picks up Rebecca's anonymous narrator ten years after the fire that destroys Manderley. When Maxim DeWinter and his wife return to England for the funeral of Maxim's sister. After a decade on the run, all the creepy characters from the duMaurier original crawl out of the woodwork to give Maxim's bride the heebie-jeebies.
Sadly, for fans of Rebecca, this sequel is a disappointment. Hill tries to hard to ape duMaurier's style by repeating oft-used phrases from the original text and capitalizing on the perception that Rebecca was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. The result is far too many references to the narrator's awkwardness and few heavy-handed images lifted straight from Jane Eyre (e.g. Maxim's sister meets her husband in exactly the same way Jane meets Rochester). It's not even that Hill's writing is bad. In fact, for a modern writer, it's quite good. But it's still coarser and narrower in language than duMaurier's, giving the narrator a noticeably different voice.
Of course, it could be argued that a character would be expected to change in ten intervening years and that we are witnessing the maturation of the original novel's heroine. The trouble is, she doesn't particularly mature. Part of the appeal of Rebecca was the narrator's naivete and insecurity mixed with her vivid (and often overactive) imagination. But now that she's grown up and her charming flights of fancy have been curbed by circumstance, her innocence is misplaced and more than a little tedious. The epiphanies that come to her in Mrs. DeWinter, had they really taken ten years to cross her mind, leave the reader wondering if our sweet bride isn't rather dim-witted.
Such a poor review is perhaps unfair to Hill, who is certainly an accomplished novelist in her own right. Born in 1942 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, Hill published her first novel while still studying English at King's College - a sexy tale considered scandalous at the time that quite embarrassed the young writer. She later gained some prestige with the publication of A Change for the Better (Ulverscroft 1996) and The Woman in Black (Macmillan Hein ELT, 1992), among others. She married Shakespearean scholar Stanley Wells in 1975 and, since the death of her daughter in 1984, has been a regular columnist for The Daily Telegraph and operates Long Barn Books publishing company. In 1991, she was contacted by the duMaurier estate to write a sequel to Rebecca.
First among Hill's ground rules for herself when developing the sequel was that she would do nothing to alter the original story retroactively. For example, she did not give the narrator a Christian name, which would have then "named" her for the original as well. This was a laudable and respectful goal, but has the unfortunate consequence of not allowing the story to go anywhere. Hill's hands-off approach means that no new revelations or plot twists unfold, leaving Mrs. DeWinter as mostly a rehashing of the salient plot points in Rebecca. The story loses momentum and meanders aimlessly for long sections of the novel. When Hill does attempt to inject some of the melodrama that makes Rebecca so delightful, instead of feeling purposefully heightened, it just feels cheesy and overdone.
To be fair, it probably would have been hard to find a better choice than Susan Hill to write a sequel. The question is whether such a sequel should ever have been attempted in the first place. The original Rebecca was written to leave unanswered questions in the reader's mind. Hill's excellent judgement in leaving those questions unanswered unfortunately dooms any sequel - including this one - to be unbearably dull.
Rating:
Summary: What was that??
Review: I loved Rebecca, so I decided to buy Mrs. DeWinter and Rebecca's Tale. Both were a disappointment. The book seemed to ramble on and never get to the point; later I realized that the book really didn't have a point. I guess that'll teach me not to buy a sequel to a book that's not written by the same author. I should have paid attention when DuMaurier said at the intro of Chapter two, "We can never go back again,...". I kept hoping that the ending would make up for everything else, but it never happened. It was filled with quotes from Rebecca, however there are numerous inaccuracies throughout the book. If you are determined to get this or Rebecca's Tale, I suggest you either just check them out of the library, that way you won't waste both time and money, or buy it as cheap as you can.
Rating:
Summary: Do not read this book!!
Review: The book started out alright, but as the novel wore on I found myself wanting to rip the pages out. No doubt, the author is talented...her talent simply isn't shown in this work. First, the book needed another two trips to the editor. Entire paragraphs were held together by comma splices. I wanted to take a red pen to the pages the entire time I was reading it.
The material was interesting enough, but I think Rebecca should have been left to stand on its own.
Rating: 
Summary: YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE
Review: I very much agree with so many reviewers here that "Mrs de
Winter" is a book that can set one's teeth on edge. In long
sections it is tedious, and dull. In other places it is
irritating and annoying. Not much actually happens. And
the characters are, to say the least, unappealing. But when
I asked myself what Susan Hill was really doing here, what
she is trying to say, I began to think that she wrote it
just that way to make an intriguing point. She's not trying
to make us happy, to write an interesting book with
attractive characters we can like. She is writing a
morality tale. Maxim de Winter murdered Rebecca and his
second wife knows it. And he got away with it. Or did he?
They have everything, these two. They can spend ten years
sitting around cafes anywhere they want, doing nothing.
They can instantaneously buy an Elizabethan manor house if
they want to, and all the land around it they feel like
owning. And everyone in the county welcomes and likes them.
They could have bought a palace in Istambul if they felt
like it. They have no obligations; they don't have to work,
like most people. They have no elderly parents, no
children, no one who needs anything of them. They are
immensely rich, free, English upper class impeccable people
who can do anything they want, and get other people to do
what they want. And they are entirely miserable. He is so
sensitive that he hides so no one can look at him funny.
She spends her life complaining that anything that goes
wrong is happening in order to "spoil" what she wants.
Their premise is that they should be able to go on and have
it all. But, Susan Hill says, that's not the way it works.
Even the creme de la creme live in a world where there is
such a thing as justice. And with consummate skill she
shows us what is going on behind the well-bred, fortunate
fascade. The two of them are coming apart.
You can't get away with murder, even though it may look like
you have. I think Hill succeeded in her morality tale with
great subtlety and skill, and maybe duMaurier would think
so, too.
Rating: 
Summary: What A Bore!
Review: There was no reason to write this book. It is painfully obvious that the author is striving to write in Ms. du Maurier's style and the result is stilted and comes off as a parody. The character of the current Mrs. Dewinter has not matured or grown in any way despite all her traumatic experiences and this is so unrealistic. Maxim is also one dimensional and his character seems to have been frozen in time. The appearances of both Jack Favell and Mrs. Danvers are so contrived as to be ridiculous. I agree with the earlier writer who found the ending both predictable and depressing. I loved the original book Rebecca and am only glad that I borrowed this sequel from the library and did not spend good money on it. Rebecca fans be warned!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good writing, but the story wasn't nearly as good as Rebecca
Review: Sequel to du Maurier's "Rebecca," one of my all time favorite novels. This book is set 10+ years after Rebecca ends. Maxim's sister passes away,
finally luring Maxim and his wife back to England for the funeral. And of
course, then creepy things start happening... Or not. Can one really escape
the guilt that one would be living with....? As a sequel, Mrs. De Winter comes off as very similar to "Rebecca." Hill
caught the voice and atmosphere of the original book very well. The character,
Mrs. de Winter, has matured depressingly little over the ten-twelve years
since the first book ended. But that may have been necessary to get the plot
to progress as Hill desired.
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