The Lonely Chateau (Chambre Noir)

The Lonely Chateau is a poignant and gripping genealogical mystery exploring the intricate threads of family relationships, love, betrayal, and tragedy in France.In the 1990’s, Andre Dupont lives a deceitful life in his ancestral French chateau but tells himself he’s hurting no one. But oh, how wrong he is!In 2025, an American widower, Joshua Clayton, is raising his seven-year-old daughter, Mathilde, alone in Mythe, France. Urged by family and friends, Joshua finally decides it’s time to let go of his grief, move on, maybe even start dating. But as he packs his deceased wife’s belongings, memories resurface, some of them filling him with regret. Why didn’t he pay more attention when Isabelle got her DNA tested and started searching for family shortly before her untimely death? Why hadn’t he paid attention when she told him about some old letters she’d found in her mother’s belongings? Together, those things had convinced Isabelle her family was hiding something big. If only he’d gotten involved with her research back then, maybe her life would have gone in a different direction.In Isabelle’s belongings, Joshua finds a scrap of paper bearing an address in a village a few hours away. Curious, he researches and finds the address is a chateau, and fortuitously, the owner has placed an ad to temporarily hire a handyman to live in and renovate the house. That kind of work is right up his alley. Joshua jumps at the chance, hoping he’ll find out how or if the estate and its owners are related to his dead wife; the only catch is that he must do that by the time his job is finished.While his work on the chateau is moving along fine, his research into the past is stirring up something dangerous. The deeper he gets into the past, the surer he becomes that he’s stepped into a tangled web of deceit that could get someone killed.Beautiful schoolteacher, Sophie Martinique, is intrigued by Joshua and wants to help him solve his mystery. But will he take a chance on her? Will he solve the compounding mysteries and make a new life for himself and his daughter before it’s too late? Read more