Her mother's dying request takes Mary Yellan on a sad journey across the bleak moorland of Cornwall to reach Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. With the coachman's warning echoing in her memory, Mary arrives at a dismal place to find Patience a changed woman, cowering from her overbearing husband, Joss Merlyn.
Affected by the Inn's brooding power, Mary is thwarted in her attention to reform her aunt, and unwillingly drawn into the dark deeds of Joss and his accomplices. And, as she struggles with events beyond her control, Mary is further thrown by her feelings for a man she dare not trust...
Okay. Okay. Okay. Just breathe.
That. Was. Amazing.
It took me a week to read it because I kept going over bits I’d just read and reading them again because I loved them so much.
Mary Yellan? Yeah, screw everyone else. She is the original badass. Daphne Du Maurier. You’re the best. THE. BEST. I love you.
This is the type of book where I know I’m going to own as many second hand copies as possible, and get them with like nice covers and stuff and have a shelf dedicated to Jamaica Inn BECAUSE IT WAS THAT AWESOME.
I’m only going to talk about Mary. Because Mary. She’s not stupid. She honestly just does not give a f*ck. Basically, she is the epitome of this:
It all starts when she gets to Jamaica Inn. She’s only there because her dead mother’s sister lives there, and her mother’s dying wish was for her to join her Aunt Patience at this place in the middle of nowhere. So Mary goes and meet Patience’s husband. Uncle Joss. Who by the way is an 8-foot built like a tree crazy dude who has reduced his wife to a quivering wreck. What would most people do? Realise he’s scary and gtfo. What does Mary do? Well, in chapter 2, when faced with big beefy scary man who has just told her ‘if you talk I’ll break you until you eat out of my hand’, she answers: ‘I’m not curious by nature, and I’ve never gossiped in my life. It doesn’t matter to me what you do in the inn, or what company you keep. I’ll do my work about the house and you’ll have no cause to grumble. <b>But if you hurt my Aunt Patience in any way, I tell you this -- I’ll leave Jamaica Inn straight away, and I’ll find the magistrate, and bring him here, and have the law on you; and then you try and break me if you like.’ </b> BOOSH. And then later on she’s threatened again into going somewhere and she says, ‘I’ll come with you but you’ll find me a thorn in the flesh and a stone in your path. You will regret it in the end.’ CAN I GET ANOTHER BOOSH? It’s one thing not to be afraid of someone. It’s another thing not to be afraid of someone who’s just punched you in the face. Yah.
Mary Yellan isn’t like any Victorian woman I’ve read before. And this book was written in the 30s. Dudddeeee. Just. Amazeballs. Srsly.
Du Maurier’s writing is just so strong too. There’s no point me babbling on about that though, everyone knows she is otherwise she wouldn’t be on the GCSE reading list. There were a couple of um interesting dialogue bits -- that priest was a bit dodgy -- but nothing to stop me reading. In fact, I read bits over before I’d even finished. Just read it.
