I very much enjoyed Catherine Cooper’s first novel – The Chalet – which became a Sunday Times Bestseller – and so when the publisher emailed to see if I fancied reading her second novel, I jumped at the chance and downloaded an ARC from NetGalley. Here’s the blurb:

“They thought it was perfect. They were wrong…
A glamorous chateau
Aura and Nick don’t talk about what happened in England. They’ve bought a chateau in France to make a fresh start, and their kids need them to stay together – whatever it costs.
A couple on the brink
The expat community is welcoming, but when a neighbour is murdered at a lavish party, Aura and Nick don’t know who to trust.
A secret that is bound to come out…
Someone knows exactly why they really came to the chateau. And someone is going to give them what they deserve.”

I romped through this second book from Catherine Cooper enjoying it just as much as The Chalet. I was expecting twists and turns and unexpected things happening – and I was not disappointed!

The book follows 2 timelines – Aura and Nick and their kids having moved to France – and back in England where you know ‘something’ has happened. Flicking back and forth between the timelines really kept up the momentum of the book.

Aura is a typical wannabe Instagram influencer – sharing her life and her kids on public social media channels, and inviting a film crew to document their move to France so she can have her 15 minutes of fame. I have to say, I didn’t really like Aura at all. But then equally I didn’t really like Nick either! Sometimes not liking / empathising with the main characters takes away from the enjoyment of the book – but in this case it didn’t – possibly because bad things kept happening to them!!

It takes pretty much the entire book for both timelines to unravel and to see how they are entwined. As I said, I was expecting a big twist – just like in The Chalet – and there were a couple! And again, I’m not sure I would have spotted them even if I’d known from the start what they would be.

All in all this is not a ‘difficult second album’ of a book – it’s fabulous!