Welcome to picturesque Provence, where the Lady of the Chateau, Séraphine Demargelasse, has opened its elegant doors to her granddaughter Darcy and her three friends. Twenty years earlier, the four girlfriends studied abroad together in France and visited the old woman on the weekends, creating the group’s deep bond. But why this sudden invitation?
Amid winery tours, market visits, and fancy dinners overlooking olive groves and lavender fields, it becomes clear that each woman has a hidden reason for returning to the estate after all these years. Then, following a wild evening’s celebration, Séraphine is found brutally murdered.
In the midst of this shocking crime, a sinister Instagram account pops up, exposing snapshots from the friends’ intimate moments at the chateau, while threatening to reveal more.
As they race to uncover who murdered Séraphine—and is now stalking them—the friends begin to suspect each other. Because the chateau houses many secrets…several worth killing for in this “mesmerizing story of betrayal and revenge” (Megan Collins, author of The Family Plot ).
Comment: I was given this book this past Christmas. Before that, it had not been on my radar but the blurb seemed to promise an intriguing plot...
Four friends are invited to spend time at the French chateau which belongs to the grandmother of one of them. While studying in the university, the friends were able to spend time there and now, already in their 40s, they are back to reconnect. The owner, Seraphine, also has a specific task she wants to achieve but wants to offer a good holiday tot he girls...the question is, why now? As for them, each one has a personal reason to have accepted the invitation but Seraphine's secrecy makes everyone a little nervous... is there something that no one should know? What will happen if certain secrets are told...?
I was pretty excited to read this novel, mostly because the blurb implied secrets and a suspense type of plot development. I was curious to know what each main character would be hiding and why the invitation to stay at the chateau had happened at this specific moment. Since I had no previous experience reading the author's work, I didn't have expectations either but to be honest, I wan't overly impressed by the story telling.
In the beginning, things seemed to be interesting, the chateau's setting incredible as well as the descriptions of the geographical details (I would not mind visiting Avignon) but I was quickly disappointed over the first person narrator choice. The story is told alternatively by the four friends, and even Seraphine in two or three chapters, which does help with the interpretation of their personalities and "voices", but while this should work to add suspense and disbelief if we feel we can sympathize with them individually, such method didn't work out for me because I felt all of them were rather bland.
Perhaps third person would have helped the reader to get similar reactions to the plot without the distraction of needing to "connect" with the characters, and the more reveals we had, the less interested in them I became. Darcy, Victoria, Arabelle and Jade all had something special to commend them and their character's evolution but as a group I was not that interested in their lives nor in their secrets.
There are a few other secondary characters which provide necessary interactions but those also felt forgettable to me. To make things worse, as each main character started sharing stuff about their lives, they became boring and I confess I've skipped a few paragraphs here and there. Then, rather quickly, Seraphine is killed and I imagined this would accelerate things and make the plot more vibrant if everyone had to deal with this and the police investigation which would certainly follow. Sadly, this element seemed to happen in very unassuming ways, so I lost interest in the police work.
At this point, a big secret comes to life and I was surprised, that is true, but at the same time I started wondering why would this matter if not for shock factor? It turns out it does cause a bigger consequence than what seemed, but it till didn't "save" the story altogether for me. While this happens, and most characters deal with the discovery, we get to know more details about the women's past and their reasons to have accepted the invitation and some things were, unfortunately to me, quite boring. I don't think the exposure of these things was done in a captivating way. Probably something to do, again, with the writing style.
Closer to the end, all big secrets are shared and we finally understand the real links between all characters and why they were kind of brought together in the chateau but since I didn't find any particular interest in their life stories, I was reading mostly for the need to know motivations. When we learn who Seraphine's killer was and why, it did feel as if the author wanted this big shock again, and some details about the whole thing were more intriguing than I imagined, I'll say that.
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