Rylan Watson

The book was gifted to me, so I figured I’d give it a try. It’s absolutely terrible. Characters are one-dimensional. Phil, the main antagonist, can be summed up as bad or ‘evil’ because he repeatedly shoots and skins animals and hits Aude, often without reason, only to accentuate that he is a bad dude. Aude paints pictures and is constantly horned up for Charles. Charles is sad about life and wants to get away from his wife, Isabelle. Isabelle is money-hungry and petrified about LoSiNg ThE cHaTeAu. And lastly, Charles’ kids are only there to be sad about Dad’s “death” and are a vehicle for Charles to monologue about his thoughts and feelings at the end of the book. Now, I know this could arguably be classified as a ‘beach read’, but the way Steele constantly repeats important plot elements and character details throughout the novel leads us to believe that she thinks the people reading this book are likely 3-margaritas-deep next to the ocean, and if she didn’t remind us that Charles used to work in publishing every 15 pages, they might get lost and throw their salt-rimmed glasses onto the sand in shock. Overall, it comes off as patronizing to the reader - assuming that they are incapable of following along with the bare-bones plot, and that injecting any sort of depth or subtext into the story will confuse them. Trust your readers and respect their time, they’re smarter than you think. Lastly - and this made me laugh out loud a couple times - but the story suffers from characters somehow accurately guessing details about other characters, despite them having no reason to know/suspect those details. Like when Charles drives off a cliff, fakes his death, and decides to initiate a romantic relationship with Aude. Then, Stephanie, Isabelle’s friend, telling Isabelle after Charles’ funeral that he ‘may’ have faked his death, survived, and is having an affair?? Which is repeated throughout the story. Bonus: I laughed out loud and face palmed when I saw the words “without a trace” slipped it 2 pages before the end 😅 really? All-in-all, don’t bother. I may have included some spoiler-y details in this review, but trust me, this is absolutely not worth the time.