Cour-Mareuil has belonged to the Chevriers since the mid-19th century. It’s a big old isolated farmhouse surrounded by fields. Two towers frame the main building like quotation marks, so local people call it the castle. As the story begins, Hubert Chevrier (the heir), Bernadette (his depressive spouse), and their four daughters (who have had the bad taste not to be sons) live there, cut off from the rest of the world. The stately home is an antique theatre, the scene of superb falsehoods for three generations. Arriving at Cour-Mareuil one lovely September morn, Magdeleine Glorieux, the aunt from elsewhere, has no idea that it will take her thirty years to unearth them all, one by one…

A surprising novel about family secrets, with a venomous atmosphere not unlike Claude Chabrol’s best films.