The book had similar vibes to The Guest List. A few POVs to keep track of and enough mystery to keep things interesting. I wish it moved a little quicker but it was still entertaining. I loved the location.

This book was amazing!! I loved it!! I couldn’t put the book down!! I read the whole thing in one sitting!! It has easily become one of my favorites

This book felt slow to start and I had a hard time connecting at first, but as it went on it picked up and even with the set up where you have a limited suspect pool in a whodunnit, the twist surprised me! The characters were generally likeable and the ending was satisfying. I appreciated the setting, and the work the author did in trying to transport the reader to the French countryside. Overall a solid read that makes me look forward to more work by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books/Simon & Schuster for my advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I wanted to read this book SO badly and once I received it, it was incredibly verbose. The book would have been 100 pages shorter without the heavy descriptions. It wouldn't have been as annoying if each character didn't sound the same. It was rough. The twists and turns will be worth it for some (as shown by others' reviews) but even the best twist can't make up for the heavy writing. So sad.

The lady of the chateau Seraphine Demarglasse opens the doors of her home to her granddaughter Darcy and three of her friends. Twenty years prior, the four women visited Seraphine and formed a tight bond. After a while it becomes clear that each woman has come to the chateau for a hidden reason. After an evening celebration Seraphine is discovered murdered. Someone begins stalking the four women, using an Instagram account to post pictures from their intimate moments at the chateau. What secrets do the women and the chateau hold?
I loved the French chateau setting, the way the author described it makes it seem very picturesque. Each woman is keeping a secret from one another which adds to the suspense of the story. Who could possibly be responsible for Seraphine's murder? Overall this was a great quick thriller and I enjoyed it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I can tell it’s a debut book and that’s not a compliment. Doing a multiple pov in a murder mystery is advanced stuff, unfortunately here they all just blurred into one person. It was very difficult to remember who was who.

Then this book didn’t know what it wanted to be a popcorn thriller, a family drama or a historical fiction book.

The twist at the end was just left field.

This book hooked me! From the very cover to the blurb I knew I was going to have to dive right in. Full of twists, turns, lies and scandals it’s a story that will have you in the edge of your seat - not only wanting but needing to know what will happen next. A trip between old friends turns deadly….so who can you really trust?

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm a bit conflicted about my rating because there was so much I liked but ultimately, I felt that the book needs a bit more work to reach its full potential. And believe me, it could be great. An intriguing premise, an absolutely gorgeous choice of setting, atmosphere and intrigue done well. Unfortunately, I agree with other reviewers in that the main characters are not distinct enough in voice and personality to tell their chapters apart, and the twist seems to come out of nowhere and seems disconnected from the direction the story was headed in. I believe this is the author's first venture into the genre and I would honestly love to see more, as I think she has a lot of talent that could be refined with time. I would definitely read another book from her in the future.

Oh, and the first joke about Darcy and her Nap Dresses was funny. By what felt like the thousandth time, it was not.

The chateau is a fun debut novel very similar to a Ruth ware or Lucy foley and fits with the trend of a new generation of Agatha Christie-like mysteries. Four childhood friends are called back to Darcy’s grandmothers chateau in Paris where they spent many summers and have many memories together-not all happy. Seraphine is whining and by all accounts-this is her last gathering with her beloved group, but there are darker reasons for seraphine gathering them together. Over the course of their time at the chateau, there is a murder, secrets exposed, relationships shattered, etc. One of the group is a killer but who and what is he or she protecting? Like I said a fun mystery that, while it jumps between 6 different narrators, is easy to track and follow. The plot twists and turns expertly along the way and there is a surprising depth and historical element to one of the sub plots. A very enjoyable read for a beach or a day laying by the pool and I will look forward to her next outing! My only complaint is a common one for authors who use a foreign country in their story-randomly throwing in a French word or phrase into otherwise English dialogue in an effort to make it seem authentic. It reads as cheesier than intended!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing the arc via the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks so much to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this book!

I have scheduled promotional posts around release day for this book and I will provide a full review on my Instagram once I am able to get to this read.

Rating 5 stars on Netgalley as a placeholder for me to update later once the review is complete.

Will also complete a review on Goodreads once read.

Thanks again!

This cover is everything that I want in a thriller, dark, mysterious, and edgy. The hot pink title popped and my eyes were immediately drawn to the light on in the chateau.

Sadly, the book did not draw me in until the halfway mark. It took a while to get the 7 main characters straight along with their back stories and family history. Everyone was intertwined. The audiobook, thankfully, had a full cast, but I tended to prefer the physical version to not miss anything.

To not give too much away, a WWII historical fiction storyline is at the heart of this book. Once this thriller dove into the "why", it picked up greatly and turned into a twisty, well-researched book I couldn't put down. This is why I can never DNF books.

Also, a heads up to my breast cancer friends. One character is coming to terms with her mastectomy and may be a PTSD trigger for some. It brought back memories that I had shelved 6 years ago.

Thank you to @netgalley, @bookclubfavorites, and @Simon.audio for the advanced copy. It is out 5/23/23!

Unfortunately this one was DNF for me. The beginning was really slow and boring and I really couldn't get myself to invest any more of my time in this book. I do love the cover though.

Thank you NetGalley, Atria Books and the author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I had been anticipating this one for a while and was super pumped when I got an advanced reader copy. I set my TBR list to the side and started reading it right away.

First of all - it is probably the most boring and least thrilling thriller that I have ever read. I hated every single character and could not tell them apart to save my life. Now that’s saying a lot because they were all given sympathetic traits, but it didn’t matter, and it felt forced. I hated them all equally.

Séraphine invites her granddaughter Daphne and Daphne’s three best friends to come stay with her in the French Chateau they all visited when in college. Grandma is dying of cancer and wants to spill some secrets to the girls before she goes, but the book kicks off with grandma being stabbed to death before she has the chance. The whole concept is just weird, like whose grandma is inviting them and their friends by handwritten invitations, at the ages of 40 to come stay for a visit…? The connection just felt off.

As mentioned, each character is given an overly sympathetic backstory that just isn’t developed. One has infertility issues and a cheating husband, one had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer, one has a horrible family backstory involving the holocaust. Still…. I couldn’t bring myself to like any of them.

The final plot twist or twists is just too much and not enough at the same time. It’s basically answered with “well that person is just a sociopath” after taking the time to develop the character. There’s nothing I hate more than that cop out. Then the author throws more twists by trying to explain how everything is related but it’s trying too hard. Maybe if there was more character development and less detailing what type of pajamas each person is wearing at any given time it would have worked better.

Overall, I found it excruciatingly boring, and I wish I’d just DNF’d at 32% when I had the second or third urge to do so.

I'm starting to think I should be rating my books based on how much sleep deprivation I've experienced because of them. I was so grateful it was the weekend because I did not want to put this one down. So yes, sleep was definitely lost. That ending certainly deserved it! You will want to add this one to your summer reading list, particularly if you enjoy juicy secrets and twisty dramatic mysteries!

I knew I wanted to read this book the moment I saw this cover. It had dark secrets written all over it. Then I read it was about 4 best friends invited for an unexpected reunion at a castle in beautiful Provence in France where they spend their summer weekends 20 years ago and I was sold.

I love secluded location but plenty of suspects kind of setups and this book nailed it. I was completely immersed both in the gorgeous setting (yes, Provence is as enchanting as described in the book) and in getting to know each one of the characters and their various secrets. Elements of history, art, identity, motherhood all merged in a meaningful way and I loved how it all came together in the end. Yes, sleep was lost! I loved the ending so much, that alone made it worth it!

After The Chateau, Jaclyn Goldis is on my must-read list 🤩

A big thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for gifting me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This left me unsure how I felt about it. It took a long time for me to get into it, with all of the characters and their POVs. I started reading it on a plane, and that made it harder for me to focus. I was still unsure about who the different characters were by the 20% mark.

But it did start getting interesting and picked up for me at that point. I found myself flipping through the pages relatively fast. I like how certain things seemed like they would be big reveals, and then ended up being revealed in a more quiet way early on in the story.

I liked and didn’t like the ending. I like open endings, and I liked what was revealed in the end. But I didn’t care for that last little bit.

3,5 stars

Thank you to #netgalley , #simonaudio , and #librofm for this #gifted copy. This was a fabulous recommendation from @thrillbythepage . She said it would be outstanding, and it was! Twists and turns, guilty actors all with viable motives, and a murder. So good! The French accents in the audiobook version were fantastic as well!

I love a locked room mystery and was drawn in by the premise of this but the execution just wasn’t working for me. I decided to DNF. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

A twisty, atmospheric mystery. Very hard to put down.
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really feel bad a bit this but this one SO was not for me!! I looked at Goodreads and there are many favorable reviews so don’t go just off my opinion but unfortunately this one really really didn’t work for me. Love the cover though and wanted to love it so much. But…nope.

What worked:
💙Set in a chateau in France

💜4 best friends coming together due to receiving mysterious invitations from
one of their grandmothers

💖Locked room style murder mystery element

What didn’t work:
Oh goodness I feel so bad but where to begin?

🙈Writing style - oh my! In the first chapter a lone I felt like she threw in every cliche and metaphor and descriptive word she possibly could. I actually read the first chapter and put it down for a week because I didn’t know if I would be able to handle the writing.

Examples:
“But summer aside, my teeth are now chattering like someone banging on a door knocker. My nerves are the obvious puppeteers.”

“Life isn’t always a buffet. Sometimes you have to sit down for the meal that is placed before you.”

🙈The characters - so hard to tell them all apart because there were no distinct voices and I kept having to remind myself which friend was which even though each chapter had the name of the characters whose point of view it was

Side note - it looks like the audio has multiple narrators so maybe that’s the way to go so you can keep the characters straight.

🙈The “twists” - one twist I guessed immediately from the moment something was shown in the book - she was revealing way too much in the moment where nothing seemed surprising

🙈The side plots - an affair, fertility issues, social media, a stolen painting, Jews hiding during the war, secrets that reveal true identities, and more. Too too much!

🙈Again the writing - the whole thing was just way too drawn out and meandering in its story. One more big twist at the end that seemed so pointless unless it’s being set up for a sequel maybe? Just seemed unnecessary.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for this advanced copy on exchange for my honest opinion.