The Chalet

This book was utterly brilliant. One of my favourite reads of the year.

The plot was so good, with twists and turns that kept you guessing throughout. I read the book in staves on Pigeonhole but if I'd had the book I would totally have read it in one go.

It says a lot about the author's talent that despite some really horrendous male characters in the story, you still got hooked into it. Seriously, the only male character I felt any semblance of sympathy for was Hugo. The rest of the men left a lot to be desired.

I've never been skiing (and I don't think I'd ever want to after reading that book!) but I loved the setting. I think I got the taste for that having read Ruth Ware's One by One, another book set in a French Resort.

I would highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Pigeonhole and Catherine Cooper for the chance to read this book.

A snowy thriller that keeps you guessing until the end. I thought the plot was terrifically well executed and very clever. Adam and Will are two warring brothers, one of whom goes missing on a mountain in France in 1988. Twenty two years later a group of people meet in a Chalet for a holiday, but which guests are connected to the brothers and how? Who is looking for revenge? I thought the characters were very well written and suitably unpleasant and self-centered, both in 1988 and 2020. A very good book for a bit of escapism in a winter setting with lots of fab descriptions of ski holidays in luxurious surroundings. Would definitely read more by the author and I think this might be one of my favourite books this year. 

Thanks to the Pigeonhole for allowing me to read a copy with no obligation to provide an unbiased free review. 

This was such an addictive read. The Chalet weaves between two timelines; 1998 and 2020, both set in the atmospheric ski resort of La Madiere, France. In 1998, two brothers go on a skiing holiday with their girlfriends. The brothers haven't got the best relationship and in an competitive manner the pair decide to go off-piste, with their ski instructor in order to out-do other another. However, due to a heavy snowstorm they both lose contact with the instructor and disappear. Only one of them is found. Forward twenty years, a group of four go to the same resort which now has luxurious chalets to spend a few days hoping to make business deals. However, the characters all seem to be hiding something and things aren't as they first seem.

I loved the way The Chalet alternates between the two timelines and the different characters. It was fascinating to read from the different characters points of view as you got a real sense of who they were, their own struggles and insecurities as well as delving into their secrets as the story progressed. This feature definitely added to my overall enjoyment of the novel as well as the snippets of the newspaper reports that would appear within the novel. The fast pace made this quite the page-turner I was hoping for.

I was eager to find out what happened to the two brothers on that fateful day and how the two timelines were linked. The tension was so palpable as you turned the page I was gripped from the very beginning. This intense thriller was extremely chilling with the added mystery surrounding the characters and the events from 1998, which I loved.