Title: The Chalet
Author: Catherine Cooper
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishing
Release Date: November 9, 2021
Pages: 400
Book Source: Netgalley
“French Alps, 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.” – Amazon
Kim’s Review
I love finding debut books and being able to share the fantastic book with other readers, unfortunately The Chalet by Catherine Cooper is not as awesome as some of the big name reviewers are promoting it to be.
This 400 page book could have easily been edited down to 300 pages. I read to learn new things, and since I don’t know a lot about skiing I was excited to pick up some new information. While I did learn a couple of things, there were a lot more that could have been explained a bit more for the reader. I’m not saying I want it to be an instruction manual on skiing, but there are ways that some of the terms could have been added into the story.
I also think The Chalet could have been edited down because I found myself skimming… a lot, especially the sections where the two ski instructors were trying to figure out what to do about their lost clients.
For a brief moment, and I do mean brief, I thought the book was going in a different direction, but about 20 pages later I knew exactly where it was headed. And all the super twists that are mentioned in the advertising are not that surprising if you read any other thrillers or suspense books. Since I want to keep this review spoiler free, in case you decide to read The Chalet, I won’t go into more detail about the parts that a reader could see coming from a mile away.
I really do not enjoy being so negative to a new author, but The Chalet needed more editing… which is not Cooper’s fault. Because of this I would be willing to read another book she puts out, but really hope she is able to make it twisty.
**
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