Blog Tour – Book Review: Behind Closed Doors – B. A. Paris

Very happy to take part in this blog tour today! Thank you Netgalley and Mirabooks UK for sharing this review copy with me.

Blurb: 

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace.
He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do.You’d like to get to know Grace better.But it’s difficult, because you realise Jack and Grace are never apart.Some might call this true love. Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or how she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. And why there are bars on one of their bedroom windows.
Sometimes the perfect marriage is the perfect lie.

Review:

I finished this book in one sitting. Grace and Jack are the perfect couple. Jack is handsome and wealthy, Grace is elegant and charming and the perfect hostess. They have a friend circle who might just envy them for their perfection together. They have a beautiful secluded house, they are so in love and Jack never leaves Grace’s side. They have a perfect marriage, perfect house, a perfect love story. But when the laughter is over, the friends gone home, it is a different story.

Grace’s narration gripped me from the start and I could feel her helplessness and wished a miracle should save her. Grace’s story alternates between past and present. We learn how she met Jack and fell in love with him instantly when Jack showed kindness and empathy towards Grace’s sister who has Down’s syndrome.

Jack has charm and good looks and it is only natural for Grace to fall in love him. It is quite scary to see his true colours as soon as they are married. He is a truly evil character and exceptionally clever to manipulate and control Grace. You begin to wonder if Grace will ever break free from his trap.

Behind Closed Doors is a tense and claustrophobic psychological thriller An interesting take on the subject of domestic violence, Behind Closed Doors is highly addictive and engrossing.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Author info:
B A Paris is from a Franco/Irish background. She was brought up in England and moved to France where she spent some years working as a trader in an international bank before re-training as a teacher and setting up a language school with her husband. They still live in France and have five daughters. Behind Closed Doors is her first novel.

 

Follow BA on Twitter @BAParisAuthor

 

 

To purchase “Behind Closed Doors” click HERE

More information and reviews if you follow the tour:

Book Review: Beside Myself

Title: Beside Myself
Author: Ann Morgan
ISBN: 9781408870297
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Source: Advance copy via NetGalley
Release Date: January 14, 2016
Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis: 

Helen and Ellie are identical twins – like two peas in a pod, everyone says.

The girls know this isn’t true, though: Helen is the leader and Ellie the follower.

Until they decide to swap places: just for fun, and just for one day.

But Ellie refuses to swap back…

And so begins a nightmare from which Helen cannot wake up. Her toys, her clothes, her friends, her glowing record at school, the favour of her mother and the future she had dreamed of are all gone to a sister who blossoms in the approval that used to belong to Helen. And as the years pass, she loses not only her memory of that day but also herself – until eventually only ‘Smudge’ is left.

Twenty-five years later, Smudge receives a call from out of the blue. It threatens to pull her back into her sister’s dangerous orbit, but if this is her only chance to face the past, how can she resist?

Review:

Beside Myself is the story of twins and how a childish game gone horribly wrong affects the entire life of one of the twins. One day, Helen and Ellie decide to swap places to tease their mother and other people in their neighbourhood. After fooling everyone, including their mother, Helen wants to swap back. But Ellie refuses. You see, Helen has always been the leader between them and Ellie has lived in Helen’s shadow. Ellie has always been poorly and mentally slow due to a complication at birth. But now, she has the opportunity to live the life Helen has enjoyed. Helen ends up being locked in as Ellie and try as much, she cannot switch back. As frustration and helplessness set in, she starts to develop psychological problems.

Helen (now Ellie) is clearly mentally ill, hearing voices, living in a horrible apartment – which reflects the chaos and confusion in her mind. She is also paranoid and suspicious and sometimes has a hard time differentiating between reality and nightmares.

This dark psychological thriller is very well written and atmospheric and shows what it is like to experience mental illness brought on by dysfunctional family dynamics, social pressure and deception. The creepy premise of this book grabbed me. Reading about twins is always fascinating as they share a bond unlike any other. To be true, I didn’t like these twins but still the it held my interest till the end. Does Helen ever get her life back?

Book Review: The Girl on the Train

Title: The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
ISBN: 9780857522313
Publisher: Random House UK, Transworld Publishers
Source: Advance copy via NetGalley
Release Date: January 15, 2015
Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis: Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.

Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.

Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…

Review:

Rachel is a real mess. Gone is the strong, confident working woman – she is now just a shadow of her former self. Her husband has left her for another woman – they now have a baby, a baby Rachel wanted more than anything. Unable to accept the situation, she has now turned to drinking, has become a bad drunk in fact and often has blackouts. to make matters worse she has lost her job and gained weight.

However, she still takes the same train at the same time (as she did when she had a job) still keeping up the illusion of going to work and not letting anyone else find out that she was fired. While on the train, she looks out at the row of houses (one of which had been her own house once) and dreams and spins stories about the people she sees. She looks out for one house in particular and has named its residents Jason and Jess. Watching the husband and wife everyday, she feels their life is perfect. Until one morning she sees something different, something unexpected and she is shocked. Through her drunken, unreliable narration, we find out more…

Rachel is such a flawed character – to the point of being weak. She is drunk most of the time, has lost her job, has an obsessive compulsion to stalk and call her ex-husband and yet you feel sympathetic towards her. She is on the edge of losing herself. As the plot progresses, we learn more about the residents on the track and more about Rachel.

This is an incredible psychological thriller with a lot of suspense and tension. An unlikable protagonist with her unreliable narrative, layered characters and intriguing plot. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great thriller.

Book Review: The Uninvited

Title: The Uninvited
Author: Liz Jensen
ISBN: 978-1608199921
Source: From Bloomsbury via NetGalley
Rating: 3 out of 5

Synopsis: It starts when a seven-year-old girl puts a nail gun to her grandmother’s neck and fires. An isolated incident, say the experts. The experts are wrong. Across the world, children are killing their families. Is violence contagious? As chilling murders by children grip the country, anthropologist Hesketh Lock has his own mystery to solve: a bizarre scandal in the Taiwan timber industry. Hesketh Lock has his own personal problems: he has Asperger’s syndrome, his step-son is behaving in a strange manner and he has never been good at relationships. But when Hesketh’s Taiwan contact dies shockingly and more acts of sabotage and child violence sweep the globe, he is forced to acknowledge possibilities that defy the rational principles on which he has staked his life, his career, and, most devastatingly of all, his role as a father. 

My Review:

I have never read a novel based on dystopian themes before and this looked like a good start. It is set in the present day when children start behaving oddly and irrationally attacking and killing the people they love. At first it is believed to be isolated incidents but soon such incidents take place across the world.

The book starts with the narrator Hesketh explaining the start of the incidents. Most of the novel is about these incidences and how they interweave with Hesketh’s life both personally and professionally. He makes for an interesting character with his Asperger’s syndrome. His practical and logical monologues and inner dialogues are particularly interesting.

The ending is a bit unconvincing and unexpected but given the theme of the novel I think it is not that far fetched to imagine. Overall it’s an interesting plot and a novel concept but I think it could have been much more than just a good read. It could have been more powerful and thought provoking.