‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ A bit of a cliche, but then Daphne du Maurier trades on Gothic-novel cliches in Jamaica Inn, running with them and, in most cases, turning the dial up to 11: orphaned heroine, check; lonely, windswept location, check (the titular inn, atop Bodmin Moor); winds, storms, lightning, check; emotions as wild as the weather, check; a dastardly villain, check. But du Maurier gets away with it all through the sheer quality of her writing – the Moor is a character in its own right, and the weather is another – and the sheer fun she has in ramping it all up to the max and then keeping it there. Great fun and highly recommeded, particularly if you’re visiting the area.