A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2017: Mysteries and Thrillers
“A story with a ratcheting sense of unease — a tale of friendship and love, sanity and the terrible unravelling of it.” —USA Today
“B. A. Paris has done it again! The Breakdown is a page-turning thriller that will leave you questioning the family you love, the friends you trust, and even your own mind.” —Wendy Walker, author of the USA Today bestselling novel All Is Not Forgotten
“In the same vein as the author’s acclaimed debut, Behind Closed Doors, this riveting psychological thriller pulls readers into an engrossing narrative in which every character is suspect. With its well-formed protagonists, snappy, authentic dialog, and clever and twisty plot, this is one not to miss.” —Library Journal (starred)
“This psychological thriller is even harder to put down than Paris’ 2016 best-seller debut Behind Closed Doors; schedule reading time accordingly.… With two in a row, Paris moves directly to the thriller A-list.” —Booklist (starred)
“British author Paris follows her bestselling debut, 2016’s Behind Closed Doors, with another first-rate psychological thriller.... Tension quickly builds to a crescendo as Cass’s fears...become palpable.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Praise for Behind Closed Doors
“Debut-novelist Paris adroitly toggles between the recent past and the present in building the suspense of Grace’s increasingly unbearable situation, as time becomes critical and her possible solutions narrow. This is one readers won’t be able to put down.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Making her smash debut, Paris [keeps] the suspense level high. In the same vein as Gone Girl or Girl on the Train, this is a can’t-put-down psychological thriller.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“This debut is guaranteed to haunt you — especially if you’re about to tie the knot. Paris’s thriller asks the question: ‘The perfect marriage or the perfect lie?’ Jack and Grace, the couple at the center of this totally enthralling novel, are so clearly not what they seem you’ll have no choice but to read and read and read until their darkest secrets are revealed. Warning: brace yourself.” —Bustle (10 New Thrillers to Read This Summer)
“A gripping domestic thriller…the sense of believability and terror that engulfs Behind Closed Doors doesn't waver.” —The Associated Press, picked up by The Washington Post
“Behind Closed Doors takes a classic tale to a whole new level…This was one of the best and [most] terrifying psychological thrillers I have ever read…each chapter brings you further in, to the point where you feel how Grace must feel. The desperation, the feeling that no one will believe you and yet still wanting to fight because someone you care deeply about will get hurt.” —San Francisco Book Review
“Paris grabs the reader from the beginning with a powerful and electrifying tale. Behind Closed Doors, a novel sure to make one's skin crawl, also reveals no one truly knows what does go on behind closed doors.”—New York Journal of Books
“Newlyweds Grace and Jack Angel seem to lead a perfect life in British author Paris’s gripping debut, but appearances can be deceiving...Grace’s terror is contagious, and Millie’s impending peril creates a ticking clock that propels this claustrophobic cat-and-mouse tale toward its grisly, gratifying conclusion.” —Publishers Weekly
“A frighteningly cool portrait of a serious sadist, Behind Closed Doors is a gripping, claustrophobia-inducing thriller... Read at the risk of running from every handsome British lawyer who crosses your path.” —Romantic Times
“This book proves that looks are most definitely deceiving...Disturbing, to say the least, readers will definitely be shaken as the story commences and they become immediately absorbed. The writing was incredible, and the pace is quick, offering up too many chills to count...Behind Closed Doors screams: ‘Stay single!’” —Suspense Magazine
"This book just has to be huge in 2016. I flew through it in two breathless sittings. Quite simply: astounding." —S.J.I. Holliday, author of Black Wood
"This outstanding debut novel will leave you breathless." —Bella
"This one is 2016's answer to Gone Girl. Nuff said." —Women's Health UK
"It took me just an afternoon to read this book and by the end, my heart was pounding. If you like fast and frantic stories, you'll love this." —The Sun
"Behind Closed Doors is an intriguing, sharply gripping debut thriller." —Lovereading.co.uk
"An utterly compelling journey through the darker side of the human psyche. Your blood will run cold but you won't be able to stop reading, I promise you that." —Sarah Harper, Lovereading reviewer
"This has been one of my best reads EVER and will be huge in 2016. Congratulations to B A Paris on a remarkable debut book." —Shelley Bennett, The Book Club member
★ 05/29/2017
British author Paris follows her bestselling debut, 2016’s Behind Closed Doors, with another first-rate psychological thriller. When school teacher Cass Anderson, who lives in the English hamlet of Nook’s Corner, leaves a party during a heavy rain, she decides, against her husband’s advice, to take a shortcut home on a dangerous lane through dark woods. She’s almost through when she sees a car stopped on the road with a woman behind the wheel. She stops, but when the woman doesn’t get out, Cass drives away. Later, she learns the woman has been murdered and that she was Jane Walters, a young mother whom Cass recently befriended. Wracked with guilt that she didn’t do more, Cass also worries about her sanity. Her mother has early-onset dementia and lately has been forgetting major things, like signing a contract and inviting guests for a barbecue, and Cass worries the same thing could be happening to her. Tension quickly builds to a crescendo as Cass’s fears about her mental state—and those mysterious phone calls that may be from the killer—become palpable. 300,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Camilla Wray, Darley Anderson Agency (U.K.). (July)
★ 03/15/2017
Would you stop to help the driver of a stalled vehicle on an isolated wooded road during a major storm? As the morning news reveals that the stranded driver had been brutally murdered, probably minutes after Cass drove by, this is the question she repeatedly asks herself as she replays those moments from the night before. Then she starts receiving silent phone calls. Is the caller the killer? Did he see her? Already worried about early dementia (her deceased mother suffered from this) and racked with guilt, Cass starts to forget things, mix up dates, and become mired in confusion, fear, and paranoia. Thank goodness she has her loving husband and longtime best friend to support her. It's unfortunate that the two don't really get along, but as long as Cass has them to count on, she should be fine. VERDICT In the same vein as the author's acclaimed debut, Behind Closed Doors, this riveting psychological thriller pulls readers into an engrossing narrative in which every character is suspect. With its well-formed protagonists, snappy, authentic dialog, and clever and twisty plot, this is one not to miss. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/17; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/17.]—Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD
Narrator Georgia Maguire's soft British accent is an absolute listening pleasure. But author B.A. Paris's new release, a first-person account with few supporting characters, offers Maguire scant opportunity to demonstrate any significant range beyond the musings of the anguished heroine. Tormented by what she believes are signs of early-onset dementia, Cass develops a near-paralyzing paranoia and an overwhelming fear of losing her beloved husband. Her discovery that she may have had a role in a brutal murder proves to be her tipping point into an emotional breakdown. Questions are eventually answered, and the mystery resolved, but it is the texture and tension provided by Maguire's skillful delivery and beguiling voice that make this a successful audio offering. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-04-04
A murder committed on a rainy night on a spooky backwoods road opens Paris' (Behind Closed Doors, 2016) second thriller.Cass Anderson is only a year into her marriage to Matthew, and she couldn't be happier. After all, the two share a lovely cottage in Nook's Corner, even if it is a bit secluded, beyond a dark road that leads through the woods, the same woods that Matthew pointedly warns her not to take a shortcut through on a rainy night after a party. She does, of course, and sees a woman sitting in her car in the lay-by lane. To help or not to help? Cass pulls up and stops for a bit, but the woman doesn't signal for help and Cass eventually moves on, learning the next day that the woman was brutally murdered. When Cass realizes she knows the victim, Jane Walters, in passing, she's even more shocked, but her paranoia and fear of nearly every small event seem to hit her all at once, with not much burn time, morphing schoolteacher Cass into the stereotypical "hysterical" woman. It doesn't help that Cass' mother was diagnosed with early onset dementia, making her profound lapses of memory even more alarming. Then the daily phone calls come, with no one on the line….Is Cass the target of a killer or the victim of her own failing memory? After a flurry of events where poor Cass is repeatedly told that her memory is not up to snuff and babied by her slightly smarmy husband, Paris throws all the answers at readers in the last 50 pages, and for someone who's been through quite a lot, Cass is surprisingly laissez faire about the truth once it comes out. The childish antics of a couple of bumbling, utterly cold villains are more exasperating than compelling. Paranoid and claustrophobic but tries too many tricks for its own good.
