An artist lost to history, a family abandoned to its secrets, and the woman whose search for meaning unearths it all in a sweeping and expressive story from the New York Times bestselling author of Letters from Paris.
Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten.
But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins beyond the small scope of her freelance assignment. As Cady digs deeper into the past, unearthing century-old photographs of the Clement carousel and its creators, she might be the one person who can bring the past to light and reunite a family torn apart.
I've always enjoyed Juliet Blackwell's cozy mysteries, so once she started writing these stand-alone, general contemporary fiction stories, all set in France, I've made sure to pick them up.
I'm not sure this is going to be helpful to anyone but myself, but - and maybe because I don't read a lot of general fiction - I find these stories kind of weird. Apparently, I'm a little genre-dependent because I'm never sure what the point of the story is. I mean, I do; personal journeys, growth, blah, blah, blah, but I'm hard-wired to look for dead bodies, I guess. Plus, the author uses multiple timelines and POVs in the France books, a device that generally drives me nuts.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy the story though; I did. Blackwell captures France and I enjoyed the 'mystery' behind the carousel figure and the box inside. I might have liked the secondary characters more than the main character, Cady, but chalk that up to personal tastes, as in, mine don't run towards broken characters.
As in the previous 2 stand-alones set in France, the romance is iffy, if non-existent. This is a good thing; if Blackwell has a weakness, it's writing romance with any sexual spark (except the Witchcraft series, where the romance was very sparky). There is a love interest here, and characters are getting lucky, but it's mostly an afterthought, with only an implied possibility of a HEA.
So, after all that rambling, I'll just say: it's a good book. It's a quiet, well-built, interesting story that I enjoyed escaping into for a few hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
14 October, 2018:
Finished reading
-
14 October, 2018:
Reviewed