SYNOPSIS:
Four friends.
One luxury getaway.
The perfect murder.
1998
Two young men ski into a blizzard… but only one returns.
20 YEARS LATER
Four people connected to the missing man find themselves in that same resort. Each has a secret. Two may have blood on their hands. One is a killer-in-waiting. Someone knows what really happened that day. And somebody will pay.
MY THOUGHTS:
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 the other one. 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. Many thanks to Random Things Tours and Harper Collins for inviting me to join the blog tour. A wonderful debut novel which I highly recommend. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more novels from Catherine Cooper in the future.
AUTHOR:
CATHERINE COOPER is a freelance journalist writing for many national newspapers and magazines, specialising in travel. Most recently she has written several ski pieces for the Guardian and is currently compiling a 50 best family holidays round up for the Telegraph. She also makes regular appearances as a talking head on daytime TV. She lives in France with her husband and two teenage children, and is a keen skier.