★ 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)
"We loved what narrator Georgia Maguire did with Paris's Behind Closed Doors." AudioFile, Editors' Pick
"Narrator Georgia Maguire's soft British accent is an absolute listening pleasure. ...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." - AudioFile
★ 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.
