I was first introduced to this story in an old movie theater when I was about eight. It haunted and intrigued me, and I was thrilled to discover the book on my mother’s shelf some years later.
“Rebecca” is the story of a young girl who is working as a companion to a stuffy, overbearing woman who is traveling abroad. While staying in a hotel in Monte Carlo, they meet Maxim De Winter, a handsome widower several years older than our heroine. 
He takes her on a drive one afternoon and she is completely bowled over by him. She feels very young and naïve next to him, and is captivated by his views and his worldliness. They spend several more afternoons together, each time making excuses to her employer, and she falls in love with him, hard.
Then one day her employer announces that they have to leave immediately. Her daughter is about to get married and they need to help with the preparations. Our heroine is crushed, and goes off to tell Mr. De Winter that they are leaving. He asks if she’d like to come home with him. As your secretary, she asks, thrilled at even being considered. No, as my wife, he tells her.
She of course says yes and they rush off to the justice of the peace. Her employer is less than thrilled but she doesn’t care. She’s with the man she loves and it doesn’t matter to her that he doesn’t seem to care as deeply for her as she does for him.
He takes her to his lovely home, called Manderley. She realizes once again how ill-suited she is to be his wife; he is used to richness and opulence, and she is so young and simple. What makes things even worse is knowing that the first Mrs. De Winter, a beauty named Rebecca, was everything that she is not. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, makes sure to remind her on every occasion that the first Mrs. De Winter was elegant, graceful, full of life. Our heroine feels suffocated by the mention of Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, and it’s at this point we realize that we don’t know what our girl’s name is, a literary device used to downplay her role in the story, to mirror her feelings of inferiority.
As time goes by, the new Mrs. De Winter begins to find a place in the home, but her every attempt is undermined by Mrs. Danvers, and soon she is terrified of the unbalanced housekeeper. 
Her feelings for Maxim are as strong as they ever were, but he is distracted and aloof. Then we discover that there is a mystery associated with Manderley, and our heroine will never be the same once she discovers the secret.
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I recommend both the book and the movie (the Laurence Olivier version, of course.)
(This book was first published in 1938.)