Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a digital copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

OOOOOF. I really think this book needs to come with a warning about some of the topics, not in a censorship way but in a trigger-warning way. I was really interested in the story based on the description, but what was written seemed to veer off course from the summary. The sexual abuse, the neglect, the rampant alcoholism, the nearly Stockholm Syndrome situation that transpires...it was a lot. I kept having to double check that the 1980s was considered the "early" timeline, because everything felt much earlier in the century. It felt very 1920s or 1950s in the 80s timeline, and very 60s or 70s in the 2010 timeline. This was a tough read to finish, because of the content and what happens in the conclusion. I was left pretty disturbed after I finished, and I kept replaying the climax/conclusion over and over in my head, not because I was savoring it. Rather, I was trying to wrap my head around writing such a climax/conclusion and how disturbed I was by the content. I can't say I would recommend this book because it's...a lot.

I received an early copy of this book for an honest review. I’d say this book is between 3 and 3.5 stars for me.

It is a well written and descriptive book set in coastal France bouncing between 1985 and 2010, however the way the characters spoke made it read more like the Gatsby era. Like some of the other reviews mention, it was a lot more coming of age with a mystery tangled into the story. The first half felt really slow and repetitive but once you finally start figuring out what’s going on it gets better. Overall it was very dark book with *trigger warning* quite a bit of child sexual abuse which is the basis of the storyline.

I thought this was a mystery, but while there is a hint of mystery, it’s more of a coming to age story. Ruby and Imogen are stuck with terrible parents and their friends at a chateau in France for the summer. It’s a compelling story that kept me turning pages. It’s also very stressful as it deals with childhood sexual abuse. I thought it was a good book!