Quick Overview: Camille Leray is an art expert with a very unusual ability to enter into the fantasy world of an art piece and to bring others with her for the experience. After she falls out with her employer and is fired, she receives an offer from Maxime Foucault, heir to a chateau in Brittany, to travel to France to assess and value a sculpture found at the chateau. Camille met Maxime in childhood and never forgot the experience, so she readily agrees to his plan. However, neither Maxime nor the family is anything like she had expected. Slipping in and out of the fantastic world of the sculptures and the feverish grip of the chateau, Camille struggles to decipher reality from fantasy. Can she solve the mystery of the sculpture and make her way back to reality?

Thoughts: I wanted to love this novel as it contains elements that I find fascinating – a historic chateau set in Brittany, a tense gothic atmosphere, long lost artwork. It sounds magical. The characters of Maxime and Lila are well-written, particularly the slow reveal of Maxime’s true character. However I had difficulty wrapping my head around Camille’s “gift” which is just a little too fantastical for me. I cannot say much without introducing spoilers, but it is sufficient to say that I found Maxime’s long-term plan patently unrealistic. If you are looking for a French gothic suspense novel with a fantasy element to it, then I would recommend that you give this a try. Overall though it just didn’t deliver what I was expecting.