Firstly, thank you to Echo Publishing and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Charlotte seemed to have the perfect life, the perfect love and the perfect relationship. You really feel for her when she wakes up with amnesia. When she can’t remember her daughter she really pulls at the heart strings and you can’t help but feel sad for her.

Everyone wants to help her remember, but at the same time no one wants to push her. But it does get you asking questions, did she have an affair with the Irish neighbour? Why does her mother-in-law seem so charming but off?

We join Charlotte in a very personal battle and this book has been beautifully written with quite the twist ( don’t worry no spoilers). It has quite the suspense element, with dribs and drabs being revealed as you carry on reading.

A great debut novel by Sarah and looking forward to more in the future. I give this book a 4/5 rating.

I’m a sucker, when it comes to a big, spooky, perhaps haunted house, lost memory and the promise of a mystery. Which is why I was easily sold when I read this blurb (*taken from Goodreads):

When Charlotte regains consciousness after an accident, she finds herself living a stranger’s life. The previous five years are a blank, and her husband, Henri, and daughter, Ada, are strangers. Arriving at their family chateau in southern France, she hopes to regain her memories. Instead she feels isolated and unsettled. Strange events hint at underlying darkness and menace. Charlotte doesn’t know who to trust.

So, I don’t know about you… But to me, that sounds good. Promising, even.

Except I kind of also wish it delivered..?

Books with a premise like that can kick butt. They can kick butt hard and thoroughly! But they can also fall flat. So flat, it’s not even a pancake, it’s so gone. It’s like… Splat-flat. Not there anymore. And usually, there are reasons they do that. Very often, those reasons are all the same. So we shall discuss these reasons now.

Reason 1. The obvious villain.

Page 3, enter the villain. Who is, obviously, your lovely little lady, the mother-in-law, lady of the house. I wonder what perpetuates the stereotype?… Well, I *really* don’t know. Could it be that in most stories, the rich mom is a maniac? And could it be made it more obvious that she is..? And while we’re at it, why is she always meddling in the dark arts?

Reason 2. The husband.

For some reason, the husband always has to be oblivious to life and its happenings. He will never notice that his mother is a murderous, scheming bitch. He will just leave his poor, helpless wife (mind you, recently released from hospital with head trauma and amnesia of the past five years) in the care of his mother, to be further drugged and abused. #oblivious

Reason 3. The ally.
For some reason, the ally our protagonist usually has is a quirky friend from her old life. Most of the time she is also promiscuous. Dear god, I must contain myself to stop rolling those eyes. Don’t want a sprain.

Reason 4. The neighbour.

Is it so wrong of me to expect the neighbour to be a nice old guy? Why does he always have to be trying to have an affair with the protagonist? Just… nope.

Reason 5. The snob.

If you think we’ve had enough cliche tropes already… Well, I wish we were done. We aren’t. You know how in these stories, there always seems to be the perfect looking, every single bit of straight hair in the right place snob with a boring classic two-piece ladies suit, just trying to take the protagonist’s place? Usually working with the maniacal mother-in-law, too? Her dream daughter-in-law? Yes, that one. So yeah, more eye rolling.

Reason 6. The details.

I just want to ask you. Does it not puzzle you how the sick and frail person, barely able to walk, always gets put in the third floor, with some crazy, dangerous spiral stairs that they need to take if they want to… I don’t know, go to the bathroom? Who would do that??? What world does that even make sense in? And why is this in every single book like this?

While reading this book, I know I constantly kept asking myself, is this a mystery? Romance..? Is this a gothic… something..? What is this book about? It was so sad that the mystery never delivered (when you know exactly what will happen after like 40% of the book). All those hints about the paranormal? Never got anywhere. Just… Meh.

So I know I will be picking and choosing my book blurbs with more care in the future. I thank the publisher for providing me the copy in exchange for my honest review. I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for this book. I would have been sad.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

This was a great book, a really great debut book. It felt like I was in the south of France, very nice description of area and surroundings; it always helps me when I get the feel of where the book takes place, it helps to transport you, which is what a book is supposed to do.

I liked the premise and the main character, Charlotte was very believable and authentic. Suffering from amnesia, Charlotte is trying to piece together her life at the chateau and with those whom she is supposed to know and trust. I liked seeing her piece it all together and the conclusion was surprising and dramatic. I did feel that some of the supporting characters could have been a little more developed but as a first novel, great work.

I will definitely be looking forward to more books.

3★
I thought I’d like this one, and it started off just fine. Charlotte, young Australian wife, married to a handsome Frenchman, mother of a five-year-old daughter, has awakened from a coma and says she remembers nothing of the last five years. She doesn’t remember Henri or Ada or anything of her life in France. The family doctor is driving her home to the chateau.

”Out the entranceway comes the man they say is my husband. He beams and rushes down the stairs, bounding as if he had done this hundreds of times; he knows every indentation in the steps, in the grooves and hollows of the driveway.

His boots grind the pebbles. He touches me as if fearful I might break.

’Chérie, Charlotte.’ He embraces me. ’Salut, Jérémie,’ he says to the doctor.

His voice is a rich port, all hidden depths and subtlety. His stubble grazes my cheek and I smell lemon, clean and fresh. His teeth as he talks: all pearly gleam.”


He sounds lovely, in a romance novel kind of way, but she’s obviously uncomfortable, since he’s a stranger to her.

She remembers a fair bit about Australia and her best friend, Susannah, who was also her London flatmate when she met Henri. Susannah explains the romance, the work Charlotte did for Henri, how they married and had Ada in Paris. Finally, how she discovered who Henri really was and why he was called back to the chateau.

It seems to me she’s lost a lot more than five years because Ada is either five or turning five during the course of the book, but perhaps I’m being picky. There did seem to be a number of similar anomalies and too many things thrown into the story.

Her mother-in-law, Madame, is a weird, cold, cultish lady who has her own wing in the castle. She’s a most peculiar bird indeed. Then we see some kind of pagan goings-on, but they are never really explained.

Characters change tone and voice. Henri, at one point, swears at someone as an Aussie would, not a Frenchman, and it didn’t sound like something Charlotte would say either.

And there are so many little trails Charlotte follows that seem as if they’re mysterious, but we are pretty much left in the dark, expected to be satisfied with the Mills and Boon (or more like 50 shades?) style of the last chapters.

That dragged on and nobody sounded like themselves, they sounded like teenagers.

BUT, the author’s sense of place and setting were excellent, and I did enjoy France, the gardens and the chateau.

”There are windows across from where I sit. If I lean and stretch to the left, the trees that mark the end of the field are visible. Denuded, gnarled limbs are stark against the blue horizon. Feathered tips of a cypress cluster peek over a faded tile roof.”


It’s a debut novel, and I think Ridout has a future and already has plenty of fans. The plot and the setting were all there to begin, but somehow I felt this one strayed off course.

I thank the author, NetGalley and Bonnier Publishing Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted (so the text may have changed).