Tag Archives: The Chateau

Review: The Palace (Chateau #4) by Penelope Sky

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Title: The Palace
Author:  Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year:  Hartwick Publishing 5/25/21
Length:  250 Pages
Series: Chateau #4

Overview

A line was drawn in the sand.

I made my choice.

I picked her over him.

But I begin to regret that choice, and when Raven wants to destroy the camp, I know I’ll regret it even more.

My Thoughts

It’s great that we get to see the full story play out from both sides – watching Raven’s story evolve first with Magnus and then now seeing Melanie and Fender. The crux of the story is still the same, however this version has a different approach and connection.

We know that in the first installment of Melanie’s story, we watched Fender first lay eyes on her and fall in love with her in a way that no one expected of him. He was patient and refused to take anything from her that she wasn’t willing to give and that’s something that he’s never allowed of anyone. We watched how his long standing butler Gilbert took issue with Melanie being in his life and then realized that it was a losing battle to have problem with.

So all in all, we felt that this was a story on the right path. The challenge of course is that even though Melanie developed deep feelings for Fender and that all he wanted in return was to give her the world, there was still the looming issue of Raven – her sister. Who wanted nothing more than to take down everything that Fender and Magnus had built, just on principle. She refused to believe that there was more to either man in the sense of what they could or couldn’t do and even at the back story of it all, and that really played out to the worst extent when Raven forced Melanie to choose. Her for Fender. And she chose Raven.

We start off this second bit of the story with Melanie and Raven living in Paris, ‘free’ from the camp and all that it was, trying to rebuild their lives. Melanie is heartbroken of course because Fender was the perfect man for her but she couldn’t choose him over family. She tries to move on with her life in the sense of getting a job and finding purpose, however she knows that she’ll never find a man to take his place. Raven goes through the process of getting back to her life – dating and getting back into things, but she still wants revenge and we know how that goes.

They sneak back to the camp, burn it down and in return, they get a new level of hatred for both of them. While Magnus helped free Raven before, she’s his most hated person now. Fender takes this as a personal slight and that results in Raven being captured and Melanie being shunned.

From that point on, we watch Melanie realize that her life is empty without Fender and she tries all that she can to get back into his life. To try to gain his trust and his love back. It’s a tough battle since he’s not one to let those walls down again, and we watch her try her best to make that happen. At the same time we also watch Melanie do what she can to get Raven’s freedom but that’s a losing battle.

The sub plot here that we remember from the previous installments is that Fender wants to make his empire bigger and more powerful. He wants to bring in a partner Napoleon who we know Magnus has doubts on and we know how this will end. I was expecting to see more of an interaction there to better understand why Fender was so adamant about having Napoleon as his partner, but sadly that doesn’t come. Instead we just watch the demise of everything that they’ve built, and watch the massacre that takes everyone at the camp, and causes dire damage to Magnus and Fender’s health.

The culmination of this series in this last installment gives us the flip side of the story – the romance of it, the side of a woman who wants to be valued for more than her beauty and cherished above all. It’s an uphill battle but one that is meant to be since she’s truly strong and a force to be reckoned with. She believe in change and she pushed that belief on someone else and as a result, we saw the story turn a corner.

The epilogue was quite interesting though – taking us to the camp – and the hands of an unknown person. There’s a fear now in my mind of what’s to come next and the short blurb at the end of the story introducing ‘The Cult’ makes me scared for what will find its way to that area. It was bad before with the drug trade and I have shivers thinking about what’s next. Now I just have to wait a few months for that story to come out. So…on that note – Enjoy and let’s be patient for the next story to begin.

Review: The Boss (The Chateau #3) by Penelope Sky

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Title: The Boss
Author:  Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year:  Hartwick Publishing 3/23/21
Length:  290 Pages
Series: The Chateau #3

Overview

It’s complicated.

Am I allowed to say that?

Am I allowed to use that as an excuse to feel something toward the man that runs this place, is the reason I’m here in the first place, as well as my sister Raven?

They call him The Boss. I call him Fender.

And he calls me Beautiful.

I can tell myself I’m just using him to get what I want.

But we both know that’s not true.

My Thoughts

The first two installments of this series were about Magnus and Raven – we watched how the actions on an ill-fated night by Melanie ended up getting them captured and sent to a camp to help a drug lord. We watched Raven’s never ending quest for freedom, and Melanie’s guilt for getting the captured, how she follows Raven where ever she goes, but at the same time we watched how the Boss – Fender took a liking to Melanie, and this is what we get in the second half of the series.

Where this third installment picks up is the first time that Fender sets his eyes on Melanie at the camp. He’s been snared by her beauty – and even though he’s always surrounded himself with beautiful women, there’s something about Melanie that soars above and beyond. He wants to give her comforts at camp that he’s never given to any other woman that was brought there. He wants to take care of her and wants to ‘own’ her in a sense, but he won’t do it unless she’s willing. so we spend much of the front half of this story watching how this slowly begins to happen.

Melanie on the other hand is stuck in this limbo of truly doing what’s right given the situation, and yet fighting what her body is telling her. She’s afraid of him, yet Fender continues to remind her that he won’t hurt her or force her to do anything. She wants to get her freedom back and she more than anything wants Raven’s freedom. If only her sister didn’t constantly cause trouble….maybe that would be possible.

Over time we watch the relationship develop between Melanie and Fender. There’s still.a significant gray area around what they are and what they can be, but we see that there’s something that’s starting to grow here. Fender continues to share nothing about himself, and broods and is angry all the time, yet Melanie has patience.

Fender takes her back to Paris with him when he leaves camp, and makes it clear that Melanie is his – that she’s not going to go free, but she will have the life that she deserves. We watch the transformation come over Melanie once she’s under the guidance and care of Fender’s household. We see the role that Fender’s butler plays – both with Melanie and with Fender since the relationships there are so complicated.

If you’ll remember from the first two books, there’s the drive and need for Fender to amass more. to be the biggest and the best distributor and he’ll stop at nothing. Magnus was the voice of reason throughout those first two books, but we saw that it didn’t matter. Now we’re getting the chance to see how that played out from the other side, knowing that Fender was stubborn and that nothing good could come out of what he’s trying to do .

If you’ll also remember from the first two books, Magnus managed to help Raven escape the camp and brought her back to Paris. They also went to Fender and asked for Melanie’s release. Fender didn’t think that Mel would actually go, so he allowed it and that’s where we ended this first book of Fender/Melanie’s story. We see what was starting to be an intense romantic relationship come to a crashing halt – and we can only imagine the implications that will result knowing that Fender doesn’t take well to people who lie to him, cross him and take things that he deems to be his. I can’t wait for the next installment to come along since I really need to see how this plays out from a different angle. Enjoy!

Review: The Camp (The Chateau #2) by Penelope Sky

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Title: The Camp
Author:  Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year:  Hartwick Publishing 1/5/21
Length:  329 Pages
Series: The Chateau #2

Overview

She betrayed me. 

After everything I did for her. 

Now I’ll have to suffer the consequences of that mistake. 

But then I’ll get the revenge that I deserve. 

My Thoughts

We have the continuation of Magnus and Raven’s story and we know that it’s going to be insane. When we left them in the end of The Chateau, everything was blown up in their faces. Literally.

We saw a really tender and sweet relationship develop between these two in the first book and only had the best things to hope of their future. Magnus protected her from everyone in the camp, managed to help her escape and even managed to get her free from the camp forever. Raven though, had more on her agenda now than ever. The strong willed woman that she is, we knew that she’d never settle for just her freedom which resulted in her return to the camp to liberate all the women, to set it on fire and get everyone out. What happens though is almost the unthinkable.

She loses her freedom and is recaptured. Her sister Melanie has to go back to Fender (which may or may not be a bad thing). Magnus gets crushed under a burning building and Raven saves him. But life has once again returned to the misery of the Camp and Raven’s life has now gotten so much harder. Magnus hates her. Wants her to suffer now that he’s lost the respect of the guards, and his brother is beyond angry and what’s transpired.

This second book as a huge theme of redemption in my mind. Mangus has to find a way to get back into better standing with his brother. We learn more and more about their past and how they came to their current empire, and we learn that as he reveals more and more to Raven.

Which of course mans that Raven’s managed to get back into his heart again. Like there was ever a question right? She takes a knife in the stomach for him when one of the guards comes after him and that endears him a bit more to her and we watch from there as he realizes that she’s not acted with malice in any of this but instead doing what she felt was necessary. That in itself gives her a bit of redemption in his eyes and we get to see what that can evolve to.

Magnus claims Raven as his and as such, she’s got protection in the camp. He takes her with him when he goes back to Paris each month and we see how their lives turn into something more. Something with a different tone and purpose. He slowly realizes that she’s only there for him. She’s got no other motive and not other intentions and that’s what slowly builds trust. But with trust comes and ultimatum, one that really proves to be impossible for Magnus to uphold.

In this story, we see so much transpire. Magnus comes to terms with what they’ve done, and pushes his brother to change his ways. Fender is driven by greed and a need to always have more that he makes decisions that Magnus tries to sway him away from. Decisions that have catastrophic impact and the world they know will be changed forever.

There’s marriage, love, death, despair and maybe a glimmer of hope in this story and it’s really sweet. We also get this story entirely from Magnus’ perspective whereas the first book was from Raven’s. I think that’s a really good way to extend the story a bit more – a way to see how things are far from black and white. At the end of this story, we see that there’s a third book coming out, I believe now from Melanie’s eyes. That’ll be a nice change since her experience was intensely different from that of Raven and Magnus. I can’t wait for that one to come out. Enjoy! I

Review: The Chateau (The Chateau #1) by Penelope Sky

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Title: The Chateau
Author:  Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year:  Hartwick Publishing 10/27/20
Length:  299 Pages
Series: The Chateau #1

Overview

There’s a fine line between right and wrong.

And Magnus is on both sides of it.

I don’t know much about him, but he’s the only reason I’m still alive. I’ve been taken by a group of heartless men and forced into a labor camp, and even though there’s no way out, I still have hope.

I have hope because of him.

He’s the only reason I’ll escape this place.

Even though he’s the villain who works in this camp, he’s my hero.

And I know he’ll be the hero to everyone else too.

Because that’s the price to be with me–and he’ll pay any price to be with me.

My Thoughts

I’m a huge huge huge fan of Penelope Sky and just about every series that i’ve read and this one continues on that same path. We’re in a completely different world unrelated at all to the Italy stories that it’s a welcome change. In the end of this story – our author tells us about how she’s poured so much of herself into this series in a way that’s new from the others, and it’s really clear to me as I read it.

We start off a moment in the past where a boy goes home after a night out with friends only to discover that someone’s in his house, murdering his family. He’s not able to save his mom or 2 of his siblings, but he’s able to get his brother out of the house only to see that the killer is his father. they run, and that’s all we learn about them.

Then we find ourselves in Paris, with our leading lady Raven who’s American and is studying in France. She’s always been responsible for her younger sister so going to Paris was a chance to get away, and yet we find ourselves with her sister visiting. When one day Raven notices a man watching her apartment and watching her sister, she gets on edge, and at a night out she sees the same man talking to Melanie. She’s not comfortable with this and all for good reason because her sister decides that she needs to go with him and his friends, and she of course has to follow. They end up drugged and kidnapped and that’s how our story evolves.

They’re not trafficked but instead brought to a camp in the Alps where there’s a cocaine operation that kidnaps women to pack and process the drug for distribution all across Europe. Raven is confident that she’ll find a way to escape with her sister, but quickly learns that it’s all but impossible. They are so remote that there’s no real chance of getting to a village. It’s the dead of winter so they won’t survive the weather, and the guards there will hunt them down faster than even imaginable. Raven tries anyway, and fails.

The only reason she’s still alive is Magnus. The guard that’s been assigned to her. He’s frightening of course and powerful, but he clearly has a different sort of power and authority in the camp because he has freedoms and access that the others don’t have. We never quite get it but we know that there’s something interesting there. Magnus protects her as much as he can, brings her things to make her time there more comfortable and we see an odd sort of friendship develop between them. Every time Raven is almost hung, or beaten, or accused of doing something that she’s likely done, he gets in the middle in order to save her.

One day ‘the boss’ shows up and takes interest in Melanie – which is no surprise to Raven given that she’s beautiful and has always gotten attention. Raven’s scared for her safety since we all know what’s likely to happen to her, and that’s even more motivation for Raven to find a way out.

A few failed attempts later, Magnus realizes that staying in the camp means death for Raven and he offers all the help he can to get her out. He tells her how to escape gives her resources an a map and a location to go to so that she can wait for him to come and get her, and we realize that their relationship could mean something more. There are emotions and chemistry between them and it’s intense given that they are both in incredibly unconventional phases of their lives.

From that point on in the story, Raven’s eyes are opened up. She realizes that there’s more to Magnus than she realized, specifically in money and power. She also learns something interesting about the boss and what that relationship is. What she doesn’t learn though is how to keep her feelings in check and not give too much of herself to Magnus since that’s a relationship that’s going to be 1000000% impossible.

She’s free now, as is her sister, but that’s not enough. She insists on freeing all the other women in the camp so she sets out to do that. The problem though is that when she goes there, she’s destroys everything that could have been good and when Magnus sees her, he wants to kill her. So, we’re left on a cliff and sadly I have to wait until the end of January to see who falls and who’s still alive. I have such high hopes for where this story will go and to see how the past brings itself to the present.

We have complex and engaging characters. We have romance and chemistry that sizzles. We have a story that’s unique and all that together makes for an amazing book 1. Enjoy!