The Heiress - Rachel Hawkins

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she's not only North Carolina's richest woman, she's also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family's estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate - along with a ten-figure fortune and the demands of being a McTavish - pass to her adopted son, Camden.

But to everyone's surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money - and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past. Ten years later, a summons in the wake of his uncle's death brings Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House.

But no sooner have they arrived than questions about the infamous heiress begin coming to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumours following her disappearance - that perhaps the little girl who was returned to the McTavishes for a handsome reward wasn't the real Ruby, but a changeling? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under suspicious circumstances?

And why did Ruby adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what's written in a will - and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave. n n Hawkins is the reigning queen of suspense.

• Heather Gudenkauf