The Lost Chateau
Old stately homes set apart from the world. Hidden chambers. Secret staircases. Ghostly visions. A dark past. Mysterious disappearances. Death. All of these are featured in The Lost Chateau, a novel set in 1936 as civil war erupts in Spain and the joint threats of Hitler and Mussolini hang over Europe.
Thirza Caruthers is living a happy life with her Italian husband, Emilio, their young daughter Romi, and his twin daughters from a former marriage, Valentina and Lucia, on a lush estate on Corfu Island. Circumstance quickly separates them. Lucia, a trouble young woman, runs off to join the Fascists in Spain. Emilio, despite Thirza’s pleas to come with her to France, risks the battlefields of Spain to go after his daughter. Thirza has been requested to look after an old relative, Berenice, who lives by herself in a dilapidated chateau off the beaten track in France.
Fearful that her marriage is in jeopardy, Thirza nevertheless puts all her energies into resurrecting the chateau and at the same time trying to uncover the mystery of the death of Berenice’s husband and that of their daughter Sophie. While in France, feeling so vulnerable, Thirza also meets Jean-Paul, a handsome, widowed filmmaker, who offers her the possibility of a love that has gone missing in her life.
The Lost Chateau encompasses every element that any reader of historical romance is looking for. The competent but troubled heroine. The handsome stranger. Unsettling family dynamics. Mysterious sounds heard at night. Faces appearing in windows. A disturbing past whose truths unravel one piece at a time. A dangerous liaison. Author Jefferies is an experienced professional who has assembled the right cast, placed them in a volatile world, and let the mystery unfold with the expected twists and turns.
