The Chateau

By: Catherine Cooper

Narrated by: Hannah Donelon, Sophie Aldred, Sid Sagar, Genevieve Swallow, Leighton Pugh

Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

The top 20 Sunday Times best seller

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.

The Sunday Times best-selling author is back with a roller-coaster listen, perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

©2021 Catherine Cooper (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"A brilliant new story-teller has arrived." (Erin Kelly)

"A read-in-one-sitting thriller." (Lucy Clarke, author of The Castaways)

"Chilling, devious." (Janice Hallett, author of The Appeal) 

WOW..!!… Talk About a Surprise Ending.!

I had been just rocking along enjoying the book for what it was,.. interesting and well written,.. with only a vague annoyance that every chapter was
“Labeled “ with the persons name and month .. but by the last half hour of it, and I was getting whiplash from keeping up with the spiraling plot ..!!
Surprise ending doesn’t begin to describe it… you’ll have to see for yourself…. Revenge is always best served cold..

I love a mystery

I love a mystery where I don’t see the ending coming. Is it a little far-fetched? Yes. But when it comes to telling the story, and the author did a really good job at making me second guess who I thought was the culprit and who wasn’t. Everyone is cold bubble. I really enjoyed the story and hope she writes more books that have similar twists at the end.

Loved it!

Such a great suspense author and her books always keep me gripped right to the end. Lots of twists but it all wraps up together at the end.

Fantastic

I absolutely loved this completely original book.
I wished more time would’ve been spent actually in and around the chateau, to me, those were the best moments of the story.
But the entire thing is tightly woven, well developed, filled with relatable characters, and you are truly left guessing until the final moments of the denouement.
Beautifully written and throughly engaging, creepy, complex, and wonderful.
This is a book I will revisit in a year or so to enjoy again and hopefully pick up even more wonderful things I probably missed on the first pass.
Very, very well done.
The performances were OUTSTANDING.
These characters were truly brought to life by the voice actors; this is a prime example of how a really good book becomes phenomenal by that added detail of fabulous narration.
Thank you 🦄🦄🦄🦄

Not Great

I liked the premise, just poorly executed. If you're going to flash back and forth in the timeline there's a limit. Doing that with that many different characters makes it a mess. Not to mention it is beyond easy to figure out where it was going and who did what. The ending was ridiculous. Spent most of the story stuck inside the wife's head while she wines about everything and how this and that aren't fair. That was rough, used it as a cheap distraction when doing other things. I mainly bought it because I like the narrator Leighton Pugh.

Great setting - hoping for another "Chalet" but ..

I really liked "The Chalet" and I really love the tv series "Escape to the Chateau" so I was very excited when I saw this but I felt like it did not really reach its full potential or make the most of its glorious and well chosen setting.
I would have liked MORE MORE MORE chateau!
I did like the delve into the UK Chateau owning community and exploration into their dynamic with the locals and would have like to have got more story involvement there.
The plot was good, if a little far fetched in parts. Interesting also the twist on French property laws - but all in all I felt it was a little bit of a missed opportunity for a real stonker of an atmospheric thriller.
I liked a lot of the character development - one character subplot a little too fanciful and seemed like just added for spice, rather like a unicorn darting through an episode of "A Place in the Sun" - but otherwise all ticked away well and it made for an excellent listen.
Overall I think it was an amazing idea, a fabulous and fascinating setting, a lovely escapist location for those missing their travel and entertaining but not a patch on "The Chalet" and really a bit of a missed opportunity.
Would have liked to have revelled in MUCH more "Escape to the Chateau" atmosphere and detail - more realistic characters and maybe more of a slow ominous burn to make the most of the setting.
Slap bash wallop of an ending though, a little OTT but still ingenious and horrific.
Looking forward to Catherine Cooper's next book and hopefully another innovative, imaginative destination thriller.

I enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed this book looking forward to the 3rd one now. the Chalet is still my favourite though

Dreadful sequel

I was really loo Looking forward to reading this book having thoroughly enjoyed this author debut novel last year. Unfortunately this book Is nowhere near as good as the original: the main characters Nick and Aura are the most awful people and even if you can make it through the first half of the book with aura’s constant self entitled whingeing (just skip it chapter by chapter till the middle when she starts her anti vax rubbish and read from there), The so-called twist is entirely predictable and not worth it. I have returned to audible

A great read but an abrupt ending

I absolutely loved the beginning and middle of this book, I was totally hooked. Listened whenever I had a moment…..

The ending comes way too quick, the author ties up all lose ends in minutes, I felt robbed of all the detail I had enjoyed at the beginning of the book.

Most of the book deserves 5 stars, the ending let’s it down 😢