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Dec 16, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

This is another really dark piece of literature, right up my alley. If you like 'Wuthering Heights', I promise you that you'll love this book. Don't let the purple cover and pink, script letters turn you off!

Poor Mary has no idea what she's getting in to when she goes to live with her aunt and uncle! This book has murder, smugglers, deception, and a quiet romantic thread. It had me from page 1!

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Sep 06, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

I have to say, this book by Daphne du Maurier is a little underwhelming.

The writing is, as expected, gorgeous. Just like in Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, it is very atmospheric. There is, no doubt, an air of Emily and Charlotte Bronte's style about it. Considering that I am a huge fan of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, that's a big plus. Du Maurier is also very skillful at building suspense. A feeling of dread and foreboding is maintained throughout the novel making it an inte More...

10 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2010

kari rated it:

OMG, this book is so so so so so boring. If I had not been reading it for a book challenge, I'd have stopped this one after the first chapter. It is so wordy, so descriptive and every time the action starts to move along, Mary, the protagonist, has to think off on some tangent and imagine this and that while the plot stalls. Too much of the brook burbling or the rain mizzling or the blackness of the moors or the people are like the rocks. After the first description, I don't need to read it anot More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 18, 2008

Mandie rated it:

I don't understand my reaction to this book.

I loved Rebecca, it was beautifully and thoughtfully written, but Jamaica Inn leaves me cold and it shouldn't. I really didn't want it to. It has all of the ingredients of a dark and exciting adventure and yet...it is populated by caricatures, larger than life and impossible to beleive in. The albino priest, the drunken landlord and his colourless wife...the smugglers, the cliches of the boggy more. No no no.
Admittedly it was a less m More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

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Sep 27, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

Not much to say about this one. All in all, it's a gothic novel, and a well written one. I just don't particularly like gothic novels. The genre is so formulaic that even listing the cliches would be a redundancy. People read gothic because they are looking for a formulaic story, and the more the story includes the traditional gothic elements the better it works.

If you want a story of a young self-insertion girl in distressed circumstances sent to live with people she doesn't know very More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2011

Filipa rated it:

Bem, eu gostei do livro. Foi muito menos dramático do que Rebecca, o anterior livro que li da autora.

No entanto, gostei mais do Rebecca e passo a explicar porquê. Apesar de este livro ter uma carga de suspense maior, também as cartas foram logo postas na mesa, não houve de facto ali nenhum mistério.

Já sabíamos de antemão que o tio Joss era um malandro que fazia contrabando. O facto de ele ser um violento e que o facto de amar a bebida também não ajudou a apanhar tão bem o More...

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Oct 08, 2010

Suzanne rated it:

Warning: contains spoilers
Jamaica Inn is probably my favorite of all the Du Maurier books I have read so far. Whenever I say this to a hardened fan the response I usually
receive is that J.I is quite good but nowhere near as absorbing or well written as Rebecca. In some respects I understand this response and I am happy to admit that J.I is less mature and certainly not as clever or insightful as Rebecca, but I also believe this to be a somewhat unfair comparison. To start with this More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2010

Margaret rated it:

Jamaica Inn is a dark, grim, yet exciting Gothic; after Rebecca, it's one of du Maurier's best-known books. (I thought I hadn't read it before, but after the ease which with I guessed most of the plot, I think I probably have, years ago.) After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan goes to live with her aunt and uncle, who keep Jamaica Inn, avoided by respectable travelers and shadowed in mystery. When Mary discovers the awful doings of her uncle and his band of followers, she is torn between try More...

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Jan 01, 2010

K R N rated it:

This edition has loads of typos, so my main advice is get a different one. How is that even possible with such an old book? (Unless they left in the original typos?) The cover is misleading too; the house is not on a cliff, nor is there much romance as the silly swirly letters suggest; it's mostly a mystery with a lot of violence.

It started out really slow then ramped up a lot, so if you read it, give it a minute. Without giving away too much, it ended up being pretty interesting, an More...

1 comment like

Oct 01, 2009

Lisa rated it:

Another fantastic book from du Maurier who, from the 3 books of hers that I've read to date (this, Rebecca, and Frenchman's Creek), seems incapable of writing anything less than brilliant. Master storyteller is, in her case, an extremely well deserved plaudit.

Mary Yellan, newly orphaned, comes to live with her Aunt & Uncle at Jamaica Inn, a place so forbidding that even the locals avoid it. Finding her Uncle a mean, brutal, drunken bully and her Aunt a shadow of her former self, Mary More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2010

David rated it:

Ora bem, foi com curiosidade que me “aventurei” neste livro da falecida Daphne du Maurier depois de ler tantas críticas positivas à sua obra mais conhecida, Rebecca, e ainda não tive oportunidade de ler.
A Pousada da Jamaica é uma história de suspense e com algum romance misturado, especialmente no fim da história, sobre Mary Yellan que depois da morte da sua mãe vai viver com os seus tios na tal Pousada da Jamaica. Mal ela sabe que este lugar é um antro de contrabando e de supostas mortes More...

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Nov 11, 2011

Two Bibliomaniacs rated it:

Given the fact that we LOVED Rebecca, it’s almost unforgivable to think how much time has passed between Du Maurier.

On the heels of her mother’s death, Mary Yellen sets out for her new home at the notorious Jamaica Inn. Expecting to find the same Aunt Patience from her childhood, what she actually encounters is far worse than Stephen King’s worst nightmare. Her Aunt is a broken woman and her uncle is a complete jerk-bag (a wide range of derogatory terms can be used here). And then there’s th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 13, 2011

Terri Lynn rated it:

I love this book. Daphne du Maurier sweeps the reader away along with 23-year-Mary to the moors of Cornwall. Mary has led a simple but difficult life with her widowed mother trying to keep their farm aloft but when her mother dies , Mary must follow her mother's wishes and go to her Aunt Patience on the desolate moors of Cornwall because her father had died earlier and she has no home after everything is sold.

Right from the start, the coachman and a lady in the town near Jamaica Inn More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2011

Emma rated it:

Mary Yellan is one of my favourite heroines. Trapped at the desolate Jamaica Inn in loyalty to her mother’s dying wish, she gets drawn into the sinister criminal activites of her menacing Uncle Joss. Anyone could forgive her for indulging in a little self-pity but that’s not for Mary. Though frightened and at times desperately lonely, she refuses to let Joss bully and break her as he has her Aunt Patience.

Mary is not without her faults, at times her actions seem downright foolhardy More...

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Sep 08, 2010

Susie rated it:

What a great gothic mystery! Daphne Du Maurier sure knows how to write these kinds of books.

It’s one of those books where you’re yelling at the heroine because you think you’ve figured out just who the real bad guy is and she hasn’t. Mary is strong willed and is all alone there is no one to help her when she ends up at Jamaica Inn after her mother’s death. Jamaica Inn is no place for a young lady ,carts and people come and go in the dead of the night and Mary’s once beautiful and bub More...

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Mar 02, 2010

Diane rated it:

Having fallen in love with Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, I was anxious to read something else by her. I was not disappointed with Jamaica Inn.

It's the 1800's and Mary Yellan is a twenty three year old woman who has lived her life on a farm in Helston. She helped her mother with the family farm after her father passed away. When her mother loses her will to live, she shares with Mary her final wish. She says that Mary is to go to live with her Aunt Patience in Bodmin after she dies. P More...

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Feb 20, 2008

Rachel rated it:

First of all, I am a huge fan of Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel). She is the master of the suspenseful gothic novel. Jamaica Inn is fantastic. It is not a sweet Jane Austen read so beware! It is a compelling story with a sympathic character thrown into a bizarre situation filled with suspense and mystery. There's even a bit of romance thrown in. Definately a good read, as are all of du Mauriers!

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2008

Tim rated it:

Today's Jamaica Inn is a bit of a forlorn tourist trap so read this before you pass by. It really is a rollicking good story and it picks up on Du Maurier's grand theme - that people are complex, unknowable until the end and almost impossible to judge. Doing the right thing is never clear when you don't have all the facts. She is mistress of story-telling and writing. The book is a deserved classic.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Daphne added it

The opening pages of this classic Du Maurier novel had me immediately hooked; Du Maurier's clear, descriptive prose captures both place and the heroine's mindset so well, we feel Mary's growing trepidation as she leaves the southern village where she was raised for the cold wintry moors of the north. Once she arrives at the Inn, though, the book becomes a resolutely gothic novel, with all the now-common cliches (though this book was published in 1941, so I imagine it seemed a bit less overly-fa More...

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Oct 20, 2010

Carin rated it:

I bought this book at one of the Angus & Robertson book stalls that randomly appear and disappear in Aussie shopping centres. To me, they’re always worth a look because of the cheap paperbacks and the opportunity to try new authors. I had heard of Rebecca before buying Jamaica Inn, but decided to give this a go because Rebecca wasn’t available.

My first impression was of Wuthering Heights- you’ve got the moors, the dark and evil uncle, brooding buildings…but it was the sheer cruelty More...

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Aug 23, 2009

Sandra rated it:

I only recommend this to you if you have an empty afternoon to fill and nothing else to hand. (My rating is more like one and a half stars.)

The book jacket promises, 'a dark and intriguing gothic tale that will remind readers of two other great classics, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights', and it does, a little, although it lacks their brilliance. The moors are there; there are lonely, wind-swept tors a-plenty, and the nights darken early, it's true. But these characters are much le More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 02, 2010

Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it:

Mary Yellan abides by her mother's dying wish and leaves her beautiful Helston behind and travels north to the Cornish moors and Jamaica Inn. There she expects to meet her Aunt Patience, the bubbly beauty of memory and her new husband, Joss Merlyn, who runs Jamaica Inn. Instead she finds a shell of a woman and a terrifying brute of a man in a run down inn where travellers dare not stop. If she will do as she's told and not ask questions, all will be well, her Uncle Joss tells her. It's not long More...

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Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

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Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

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Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

0 comments like

Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

0 comments like

Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

0 comments like

Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

0 comments like

Dec 25, 2011

Tom rated it:

I recently came across this book in a box of books. A day or two before it came up in conversation and I realized it was the only one I recalled in some detail from a period of reading an entire series of beautifully bound "great books" at a friend's house. However, on thing I forgot was the author: du Maurier, until I saw it again. In the years since, I have collected two other books of his that I have made a point to read based on how I came across the titles in reference, etc. That' More...

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