When Jade turned 40, the last of the group to do so, all four women went back to where it all began for them, to Darcy’s grandmother’s house in Provence to regroup and celebrate. They had stayed close since that summer in their 20s, when they spent time together in France. Darcy and Jade and Vix all live in New York, and Arabelle visits often, usually to meet with her publisher or to promote her cookbooks. They are best friends.

And they all have secrets from one another.

Darcy has a husband she adores and two adorable children who came to her after many years of struggling with infertility. While she loves her family with all her heart, it came with a price. And that price is a debilitating amount of debt that means the life she constructed so carefully with Oliver is about to come crashing down. But her secret is small compared to the secrets of those around her.

Vix is struggling after a very difficult battle with breast cancer and the breakdown of her relationship. She is broken physically and emotionally, but when Seraphine called and invited her to France, Vix knew she had to go. She had to do whatever Darcy’s grandmother asked, no matter how strange it seemed. Vix feels obligated, since Seraphine had been supporting her and her art for 20 years.

Jade went to France with a purpose all those years ago. Yes, she was studying at Avignon, and when she met Darcy, she made her a friend. But she also had an agenda. Her Jewish grandparents were betrayed horribly by a family in the region, and Jade went to France on a fact-finding mission. But when she found more than just facts, when she located the family, she started thinking about revenge.

Arabelle grew up in France, spending her summers with her grandmother Sylvie. Sylvie was a chef back then, and later a caregiver, for Darcy’s grandmother Seraphine. Arabelle met Darcy when they spent summers together at the house. And later, when Darcy came back to France to study at Avignon, she introduced Arabelle to her new friends from school, Jade and Vix. Arabelle also became a chef, and she worked hard, sometimes several jobs at a time, to become a successful businesswoman and social media darling. And while she is happy to spend time with her grandmother and Seraphine again, she has her own secret that could devastate one of her best friends.

Everything is picture perfect at first, the women enjoying the beauty of Provence and the luxury of Seraphine’s grand home. But then a creepy Instagram account tags them with captions that feel almost like threats, and the women can’t understand who would be photographing them in the house and posting it online. But things get so much worse, when Seraphine is murdered.

As the women grieve and try to figure out who could have killed Darcy’s grandmother, they realize that while they all have secrets—including Seraphine, as it turns out—one of them has a secret they’re willing to kill for.

The Chateau is a chilling slow burn thriller about the secrets we carry and how they eat away at us, set in the opulent mansion of a French grandmother in the beautiful region of Provence, France. The relationships that define these women encourage them, define them, hurt them, enrage them, heal them, and break them. As the secrets slowly emerge, and the women find out just who knew what about whom, the knife twists as they wait for a killer to be unmasked.

I thought that The Chateau was a fun summer book. All the descriptions of France, the sunsets and the food and the fields of lavender felt a little like a vacation. I liked the premise of the book a lot, but I did think it was a little slow. The chapters are told from the perspectives of several different characters, which added some tension as I realized how the stories all came together. The characters were intriguing, the story was strong, the setting was gorgeous. I just wished it had moved at a faster pace.

Egalleys for The Chateau were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.