The Breakdown by B. A. Paris
Also by this author: Behind Closed Doors
Published by St. Martin’s Press on July 18th 2017
Genres: Fiction, Psychological, Suspense, Thrillers
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Goodreads
Named One of the Most Anticipated Thriller Novels Of 2017 by Bustle!THE NEW CHILLING, PROPULSIVE AUDIOBOOK FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside—the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And she probably would only have been hurt herself if she’d stopped.But since then, she’s been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby.The only thing she can’t forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt.Or the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her…You won’t be able to put down B. A. Paris’s The Breakdown, the next chilling, propulsive audiobook from the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors.
I LOVED Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris back in August of 2016 (see review HERE), so when I saw B.A. Paris had another book out, I couldn’t wait to read it.
The Breakdown begins with Cass leaving a party with friends from work on a very rainy evening. Even though her husband, Matthew advises her not to take the shortcut home on this rainy night, Cass chooses to do exactly that and travels down a dark, secluded rural road to get home. As she’s driving home, she sees a car by the side of the road and sees a woman sitting in it. She first considers asking if the woman needs help, but quickly thinks otherwise and heads on home. Later she learns the woman turns up dead.
She doesn’t tell Matthew about the woman, but she does feel guilty and thinks she could have saved the woman even though she doesn’t know when or how the woman was murdered. Things get even worse Cass when she realizes she had actually met the deceased woman when she had lunch with her not so long ago.
Cass starts receiving calls where no one says anything on the phone and then she sees a man watching her from outside her house. She also feels like she’s having trouble remembering things, like leaving without her purse or buying things she doesn’t remember buying. Cass is becoming very concerned that her problems are bigger than they are, given the fact that her mom actually died from early-onset Alzheimer’s.
The Breakdown was a very quick read that kept me flipping page after page until the very end. I couldn’t put the book down and every chapter made me just a little more invested in the story. The suspense of the story started with the first chapter and it blended with the psychological aspect. Because the heroine wasn’t the most reliable and wasn’t entirely stable, it made me like the story even more as the story unfolded. It made me question most of the things she did and said for a good portion of the story. She was interesting but also drove me a little crazy at parts of the story.
If you are looking for a fast-paced page-turner that is a true psychological thriller, blended with a great plot and well developed characters, this is definitely a book you will need to read!
B. A. Paris is from a Franco/Irish background. She was brought up in England and worked in London for three years before moving to Paris, where worked in corporate banking and as a trader in an international bank. After the birth of her first daughter, she became a stay-at-home mother and went on to have another three daughters.
She spent four years in the Netherlands, where her fifth daughter was born. Returning to France, she decided to re-train as an English teacher and worked for some years in an international school and then at the Université de Marne la Vallée, teaching English to Architecture students. In 2009 she set up a language school with her husband and now teaches Business English in Paris.
Her first book, Behind Closed Doors, is a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 36 languages. It has also been optioned for a film. The Breakdown, her second novel, is available now.
I received an advanced readers digital copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review and unbiased opinion. Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press!
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