This was quite the murder mystery. The setting was beautiful, I want to immediately go to France and find a Chateau and all its secrets. The characters not big beautiful. There wasn’t a single character I liked and usually that’s fine because it’s all part of the story and it goes together but these were just crazy people. They didn’t have any good to them. It was a stupid, a vain, a psycho, and a dummy all wrapped into eachother. The writing was ok, there were a few chapters that just didn’t seem necessary and the over explanation on situations or people was a bit of an eye roll. BUT not all negative Nancy here, their overall sense of whodunnit was intriguing.

Seraphine is a fancy schmancy granny who invites her granddaughter and her friends to stay at her chateau one more time. She has news to give them all. It has been twenty years since they have done this when they all met in France. When they arrive it seems everyone has their own secrets and their own suspicions on why they are back. Unfortunately, Seraphine is murdered soon after and the whole grand speech she had isn’t heard. Now begins the game of who dunnit.

It wasn’t hard to pin who the guilty was but getting there was an adventure. Take away some of the characters agonizing whining and immaturity and you can enjoy the tale.

Thank you Atria Books and netgalley for they arc in exchange for my honest review.

I tried... I tried so hard. I wanted to like this book so badly but sadly I could not get past the halfway mark. I felt that the plot dragged, there was far too much space between the 'thriller' events, none of the characters were likeable (which I normally don't mind but man, how are they all still friends. I almost feel bad for them!) and too many millennial/pop culture quips thrown in to keep it modern and current.
I did love the descriptions of the beautiful French country-side :)

This one was whack 🤣 I’m still not entirely sure everyone’s connection to who and how the friends ended up friends in the first place but for those who like complex and somewhat out there webs of relationships & clues that you can’t really guess but get explained at the end (I call them along for the ride thrillers) then this one’s good for you!

The Chateau was really intense and exciting at first. I loved it and was planning on recommending it. But the last quarter of the novel, the story lines got too convoluted and unrealistic. How many ways can this friend group be secretly related??? That combined with some errors in the French made me just like the book.

The Chateau is a new thriller written by Jaclyn Goldis, a new author to me. I selected the book because of it's cover and title, as well as it being listed on Goodreads as a top 2023 thriller book readers were looking forward to reading. I read it this weekend over two nights, easily gripped by the semi-locked room mystery where four 40ish friends return to one's grandmother's French estate. They have visited on and off for twenty years but the old woman calls them back for a final time together, as she is in her 90s and beginning to wane. Secrets come flying out of the pages left and right. Some dating back to the Holocaust and others of very recent. Instagram plays an important role, too, but not enough to detract from the main point - someone kills the grandmother, and readers must guess which of the four is guilty. Add in a few servants, a best friend to the older woman, and a new groundskeeper, and there is plenty to keep you guessing. I enjoyed the changing POV across all 6 women and 1 man, and I ultimately guessed 100% wrong on the killer's identity, mostly because of other secrets that had been buried deeper. I knew one that was held tight to the end, but I was incorrect as to what really happened all those years ago. Lots to tie back to World War II and a famous Van Gogh painting too. I would definitely read more from the author.

The Chateau
by Jaclyn Goldis

"Got a secret can you keep it? Swear this one you'll save."
This book had Pretty Little Liars at 40 vibes. Four friends are invited to a beautiful Chateau in France for what appears to be a few days of relaxation and reminiscing of the days when they went to school together some 20 years ago. The invitation comes to them from one of the women's grandmother, Seraphine, the Lady of the Chateau. She has plans to announce the following day the real reason they have been invited, but the unthinkable happens... In the early morning hours of that day she is found brutally murdered! And now everyone in the house is a suspect!

The detailed descriptions of the Chateau are so vivid, they make you feel like you are actually there! There's nothing like an isolated setting for a murder mystery. Add to that an omniscient Instagram account posting images from the inside and you got me! For me, that was like another nod to Pretty Little Liars. With such few characters one would think it would be fairly easy to figure out the murderer's identity, but I was kept guessing until the very end. Every woman in the story had a secret she was hiding and they all had to come out!

If you love murder mysteries in big beautiful houses you will love this one!

4 stars
Publish date: May 23, 2023
Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

Darcy and her three best friends are invited to her Grandmère Séraphine's luxurious chateau in Provence for a fancy girls weekend. Then Grandmère ends up stabbed to death and the four friends are forced to confront secrets from their pasts and hope they aren't the next victim.

I loved the setting and setup for the story, but it dragged quite a bit and went on too many character tangents. The ultimate explanation for what happened to Grandmère Séraphine was over-the-top bonkers and felt like a cheat based on how the narrators' voices were structured. This wasn't my favorite, but I'd recommend it to fellow fans of Lucy Foley and Alice Feeney.

A classic who done it! Four best friends start their vacation filled with secrets that will destroy the way they think about each other forever. All the women are connected to the lady of the Chateau in ways that slowly unfold as you turn the pages. Menace and uncertainty, hover over them once a brutal murder is discovered. They all suspect each other, yet profess to be best friends. Who is innocent and who is the killer.
Lots of twists and lightbulb moments in this novel, And one of the women is extremely good at playing a good person and friend but I won’t tell you who. Read it to find out!
Really enjoyed this and can’t wait to read more from Jaclyn Goldis. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

The Chateau by Goldis falls in line with the current trend toward rich, middle-aged ladies who are supposedly friends heading out on a retreat of some sort and someone "mysteriously" dies. Normally, this trope is right up my alley, but in this case, I was too busy rolling my eyes to enjoy myself.

Four friends: Darcy, Jade, Victoria, and Arabelle, are off to Darcy's family chateau after an invitation from her aged grandmother. All four women attended college in France and are well familiar with the surrounds as well as Darcy's grandmother and her housekeeper (who happens to be Arabelle's grandmother). All four have various privileged things to whine about, and what "normal" people woes that are assigned to them are so massively overplayed (cancer, infertility, anti-Semitism, being the hired help) that those misfortunes are essentially how the reader comes to identify the otherwise fairly similar characters.

Seraphine, the rich grandmother, is murdered. Initially, the mysterious groundskeeper is the prime suspect, but when Arabelle's grandmother is also attacked while the gardener is in jail, it quickly becomes clear that at least one of "the girls" is dangerous ... but which one? Or ones?

I love a rotating POV, and it was one of the two saving graces to The Chateau. The other was (surprisingly, given the utter failure at character development) how beautiful the writing was. The descriptions--both of surroundings and feelings--were genuinely entrancing.

In closing, while I felt that this book leaned too heavily on current trends, I will keep an eye on this author *just* to see if her charismatic writing style evolves into something more deserving of her talent.

I loved this book so much! Honestly one of my favourite reads of 2022.

I was immediately drawn into this story and I loved the it took place in a Chateau in the French countryside.

It starts with the introduction of the characters - Darcy and her friends, Arabelle, Vix, and Jade who are all invited to Darcy's Grandmother's Chateau in France. Shortly after they arrive, Darcy's grandmother is murdered. Now to find out who did it!

What I loved:
Told between muliiple POVs
The setting
The ending

What I didn't love:
Some of the POVs didn't feel different from each other. I had to go back and look at who's POV I was currently reading
Some of the words felt off or overused like _ "Studied abroad" - that got tiring and when the women referred to themselves as "hot" - it comes off as superficial and the character becomes somewhat unlikable.

Overall I enjoyed the story and it kept me reading

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy.

This book is more of a 3.5 star for me, but I rounded it up to 4 based on the last 20% of the book or so. It started out very slowly and I almost considered a DNF because it was such a slow burn. The ending added a lot of excitement that made the waiting worth it and made me wonder at the chances for a sequel. Although it might not be for everyone, if you don’t mind a slow burn, I’d recommend it.

Slightly far fetched plot about an old woman who is murdered in her chateau with her granddaughter and her friends being treated as suspects + a suspicious groundskeeper. The French in the book is incorrect, hopefully that will be corrected before publication. The book touches on many subjects including LGBT, Holocaust, Cancer and Van Gogh. I gave it four stars because it kept me reading to the end.

I found this book a little puzzling. It took place in France and the writing was a little stilted. I thought perhaps it was translated from French but that doesn't seem to be the case. Why wasn't it written like that? Just odd turns of phrase and oddly formal writing.

The story was okay and I liked the location a lot, but there was a lot of bizarre discussion and descriptions of the living woman's bodies (particularly breasts), which seemed really strange and off. Are AI writing books now? It kind of read like that. It wasn't bad exactly, it just felt sort of hallow? Fake?

Thank you @netgalley for my ARC of The Chateau by Jacklyn Goldis.

It was a fun thriller told from multiple points of view with unreliable narrators. I thought some of the writing was a little cheesy and the ending was predictable, but overall it was a good book.

Darcy’s grandmother invites her and her 3 childhood friends to her large mansion in France.l to reveal family secrets. She is murdered before she can tell the women why she brought them there. All of the women are suspects and each have their own motives.

This is a great thriller! Told from multiple perspectives, I spent the entire book wondering which narrators were trustworthy, trying to piece together the different threads.

Four women became friends in college; while spending a semester abroad, they spent many weekends at the gorgeous chateau owned by one of the girl's grandmother. Two decades later, the grandmother invites the women to return to the chateau for a weekend away. This isn't just a social visit; while there, she intends to reveal long-held secrets - but she's murdered before she gets a chance to unveil her truth.

There are a lot of layers here, with the different dynamics between these women. They've known each other as a unit for years, but we also get to see the more intimate relationships that have developed between individuals - including where their loyalties lie. Friendships are tested, long-held secrets are revealed, and even in the final pages, truths continue to be uncovered.

I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller and highly recommend it!

I loved this book so much! Honestly one of my favourite reads of 2022.

I was immediately captivated by the strong imagery of the French countryside and the beautiful chateau where this novel takes place. I felt like I had been transported to Provence!

The owner of the chateau, Seraphine, invites her granddaughter, Darcy, and her friends to come for a visit at the chateau. Darcy and her girlfriends last visited the chateau together when they were studying in France for a semester abroad. The novel introduces us to Darcy and her friends, Arabelle, Vix, and Jade. Soon into the trip, Darcy's grandmother is found murdered in the chateau. We are left wondering who murdered Darcy's wealthy grandmother and why.

The novels of the book rotate between the girls, informing us of different perspectives. This novel was full of so many twists and turns. The ending was fantastic. You are constantly wondering "whodunit". The author does a great job keeping the reader on their toes and forever changing who they think murdered Seraphine.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy.

A quick read for me. Fast paced with a good little twist at the end. I'm not a big fan of books told from so many points of view though.

Great story, elements of mystery and suspense - I was surprised by the twist(s), and enjoyed the subplots thoroughly. The ending did feel a little abrupt, but it went with the tone of the overall story.

This was a fun and fast read this ended up being predictable. It was a good time though. Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow this was a great first read for 2023! I was instantly hooked and intrigued. The different POVs and short chapters had me hooked and saying to myself just one more chapter multiple times late into the evening. I love the character development from the grandma to the four friends I was hooked. It kept me guessing until the end and I was shocked at the ending! I give this book 5 out of 5 stars!! Thank you netgalley and publisher for the advanced copy. I can’t wait to purchase this in May to add to my collection.