I know a lot of people already heard of this author by her previous work, but for me, this happened to be the first time I read B. A. Paris. I think it’s safe to say right now that it won’t be my last. A very engaging narration and story line that hooked me from the first page.

I don’t know how familiar you are with stories like this one, or how close you come to cracking your brain trying to come up with theories as you read along, but whatever your poison, this will be an enjoyable read. Though I admit it lacked the shock value for me, it still was an entertaining story. The narration, for one, was intriguing because you never know whether what Cass is going through is real or it’s a figment of her overactive imagination due to the guilt and stress she’s experiencing.

And another thing I liked was that although this is a thriller through and through, I couldn’t help but wonder from time to time what I would do had I been in Cass’s shoes. Would I have stopped to help, in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, or would I have quietly and blissfully ignored the horrible possibilities? I came to the conclusion that I might’ve done things differently than Cass-or I’m hoping I would- but in the end, it’s the thought that counts while reading. I liked that the story constantly made me think of what I would do in the same situations, whether I’d do as Cass did, or taken a complete different path. A story that not only invites you to try to find out the facts, but also plays a little with your conscience as well.

Like I said, if you’re anything like me, the kind of reader trying to figure things out before the author tells you, or watch too many thriller movies you feel like you know all possible outcomes like the back of your hand, or you’re just there for the ride, it doesn’t matter, I bet you’ll still enjoy this book.

I’m adding four spoonfuls of this story into my hodgepodge. The reason I’m bumping off a single spoonful is because I could see what was coming, and perhaps the fact that the ending was too wrapped up for my taste in the genre. No matter what though, this story was surely a winner.

First off, I was not a huge fan of this novel. At times I found it slow and at other times I found it absurd. It was not my cup of tea at all. That being said, I understand that others have loved it. You will never know if you like this novel, unless you read it.

Let's start with the main character. Cass was completely annoying throughout the entire novel. All she did was whine. As a female lead she was very weak, and could not stand up to anyone else in the novel. I have never wanted to change the nature of a character as much as her.

There were times when the dialogue was completely meaningless and mundane. I struggled to get through these portions. And honestly, I did skip some.

This novel was very predictable. I knew what was going to happen before I read it. The only reason I finished this novel was to find out if I was correct about what was really going on. To make sure that I was not as crazy as Cass.

In the end, this novel took a different approach than others in it's genre. It was a quick read, but was very tense and stressful to get through.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and author, through NetGalley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Cass Anderson is consumed with guilt, convinced someone is following her and getting more forgetful as each day passes.

Is her mental decline due to history repeating itself?, is she imagining things? or is there something more sinister going on?

I was gripped by Cass’s story from the start. At first, I was frustrated by how submissive and naive she was as a character, but as I read on I began to connect and feel sorry for her.

It didn’t take long to work out the main plot but there was a twist I didn’t see coming and I was just as intrigued to find out the fine details, The conclusion was satisfying, the last chapters nail-bitingly tense and an overall great read.

Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Breakdown had me gripped pretty much from page one. I read a large portion of it in bed at night, and I have to say that made for tense and eerie reading! I don’t usually get unsettled whilst reading or watching things (I am a big horror film fan) but, perhaps due in part to the darkness and being alone, this did leave me feeling a bit creeped out – it plays on your mind, but not in any way that hampered my enjoyment!

I really took my time before picking The Breakdown. First, the hype scared me! Would it be another case of me against the bookish world? Could I appreciate the story itself without the experience being tainted by everyone’s reviews and thoughts? So I let the book sleep in my Kindle, promising myself I’d give it a go later. Then a few mixed reviews came out and I wondered, but by that time I was already too busy and too buried under blog tours to fit the story into my schedule…

This is how I ended up choosing The Breakdown as my Christmas read. Twenty-four hours later, I don’t regret this decision!

I love it when books get me in the unsettling and disturbing position of “What would I do?” There is something so cathartic about the exercise of putting yourself in the character’s shoes and trying to figure out what your chain of thoughts and actions would be in a given situation. Of course, there is no way of actually knowing how I’d react. Hidden behind the screen of my Kindle, I can leisurely think all option through, but I feel like a cat chasing the mouse, and it is too exciting to miss.

So yes, from the first pages on, I was flat-out on the guessing game! Why was the car there? Why didn’t the other woman do anything? What would have happened if Cass had gotten out of her car in the middle of the woods?? All those questions had me in such a state that I did not really pay attention to Cass in the first place. I thought her reactions were quite normal. I mean, I would have been quite shaken if the woman I had tried to help had been found the next day! But suddenly, the seeds planted by the author started to grow and the thorn in Cass’ foot turned her whole body and life gangrenous!

Cass struck me as a lovely and normal woman stuck in a bizarre and creepy situation, until the “forgetting things” issue took a worrying level. With cases of dementia and Alzheimer in the family, the problem struck a cord and I became aware of every single detail in B.A. Paris’ writing. Unreliable characters have a way of either making you root for them and want to help them, or completely get on your nerves and make you close the book. For me, it’s the cherry on any story’s cake! Not knowing if I can trust what I’m told, what I see through the main protagonist’s eyes makes me jumpy, on guard, and keeps me hooked! I felt for Cass and could not believe what was happening…

Because a lot is happening. Or not happening, depending on who you side with, who you trust, and what you decide to keep! If at the start I was skeptical when Cass so quickly turned into a bundle of nerves, I soon realized there was a reason behind it all and for once, me, the lover of strange and awful domestic tales, did not see anything coming!

I was overwhelmed by Cass’ feelings and my own emotions, mixing all our scenarios without being able to come up with a satisfying answer. It was as though pages had holes in them whenever Cass missed a meeting or forgot she had done something. I was living hell with her, feeling hopeless, queasy, and uneasy. I was turning back pages to make sure I hadn’t miss anything but, like judges, the black letters and white paper accusingly stared back with no reply. Nervous, on the edge, completely out of our minds, us? Why?? Haha!

Every time I thought the tension couldn’t rise higher, I was hit by a new wave of stress, an element to shut me up, to make me question whether or not I had been right standing by Cass’ side. At some point, I was just waiting for it to be over, completely taken over by the story. I abandoned all attempts at solving the puzzle and just enjoyed… No, enjoyed is not the right word. Let’s say I followed the muddled path until the epiphany came with a mix of fear, hope, and excitement!

For my defense, every character played their part right. Too right for me to figure out who was doing what behind the fog Cass and myself were forcefully stranded into. Only when Cass went back to being Cass again did I go all “OF COURSE!!!!” I’m not ashamed, I bow to the author and her skillfully weaved plot.

I devoured The Breakdown as much as it devoured me. One sitting, and then, the parting. But boy, what a fantastic unique sitting!

Summary from Goodreads:

"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…"

My Thoughts:

What a way to end my reading year in 2017! I was literally sitting in bed last night thinking about what I wanted to say about this book in my review (yes, I'm crazy like that!). It was such a wild reading experience and way more intense than I expected. The book starts with Cass seeing a woman in a car on the side of the road. The next day she wakes up to find that the woman has been brutally murdered. Cass doesn't share with anyone that she saw the woman before she was killed which means that she is keeping this huge secret. Add to that the fact that she also seems to be having memory issues - forgetting things more often then is normal and doing things that she doesn't remember having done later on. She begins to think that the murderer is possibly after her which sets her even more on edge. And from there everything really seems to spiral out of her control. I was of two minds reading this book which is why it is almost so hard to share my thoughts on it. For a good portion of the book, I was just so completely frustrated by Cass and her lack of control with everything. I kept putting the book down and then picking it up five minutes later because I also didn't want to stop reading. It was like a constant tug of war to see what was going to happen next along with the desire to kick the main character so she would do something already. LOL! The only book that I can possibly compare my reading experience to was The Girl on the Train but I liked this one more than I did the other. I did have that same feeling though of just wanting to shake the main character in order to get her to wake up already!

I'm going to get slightly spoiler-ey here so just a word of warning if you haven't yet had the chance to read this book - you might want to stop reading. Obviously this book made me feel all of the emotions which led to quite the reading experience! What really made me love this book though was the last quarter of it when Cass started to really stand on her own two feet. This had me cheering inside because this was really what I had been waiting for. It's funny because I feel like I guessed early on a part of what was possibly going on, but I was still so invested in seeing how this book was going to play out. It was a page turner and a reading experience that I won't be forgetting about any time soon! I peeked to see other reader's reactions and it looks like people either loved it or hated it. I can see both opinions because really my emotions were all over the place when reading this one. Ultimately this book will end up being a four star read for me for those reasons alone. Any book that can make me react and feel like this deserves those four stars!

Overall this book was a way more intense reading experience than I expected. It was absolutely a great way to end my reading year because this isn't a book that I will be forgetting about any time soon. I am so completely excited to read more by this author! She has a new book coming this year that I'm going to have to get my hands on plus I haven't yet read her first book. Eek! I love when I find new authors with books to look forward to! I can definitely recommend this one - be warned that you aren't going to want to put it down though! I'm still feeling the after effects from finishing this one!

Bottom Line: An absolutely thrilling read!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.

The title of this well crafted novel has a double meaning. Along with Cass you feel that you are losing your mind but you also think some one is messing with it as well. There are a couple good twists along the way but there aren’t major shoe dropping moments. It’s definitely worth the read.

The Breakdown has a good plot, a sympathetic protagonist in Cass, and two of the worst, nastiest, most evil backstabbing characters ever found in fiction. I was frustrated with Cass' passivity through a good portion of the book because I suspected she was being gaslighted, so it was SO satisfying to see her get her knives out and pay her tormenters back in kind. I can't wait for this author's next book.

thanks netgalley! very good, very suspenseful. well paced and interesting.

A great mystery novel with ample suspense and intrigue. I found it similar to “Girl on a Train” except instead of alcohol causing memory loss it’s early dementia/anxiety pills. Regardless, it was a thrilling ride from the very beginning.

Absolutely stunning sequel! Edge of your seat reading that had me up all night nit wanting to fall asleep so I could read “just one more chapter”!

This was a quick read. It started off well, sagged a bit in the middle and then ended with a bang. I really wanted to finish it, but must admit to doing some skimming.

ARC from St. Martin's Press via Netgally.

This book has great mystery , thriller and the overall twist . Is a must buy book.

B. A. Paris takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride that starts with a murder and spins further and further out of control:

One night Cass decides to take a shortcut home through the back roads, even though she know she shouldn't. It pitch black out and the rain is pouring down but she wants to get home faster than going around. Cass did not know that this one act would change her life forever. She passes a vehicle on the side of the road with the driver in the front seat, she slows down to see if the woman needs help but they do not exit the car so Cass continues on. Cass finds out the next morning that the woman has been killed and Cass feels nothing but guilt. Then strange things begin to happen to Cass phone calls, misplacing items, seeing thing, and begins forgetting things that she know she should not.When she starts to feel someone watching her she is convinced that it leads back to the night on the road, she feels guilty for not helping and could the killer now be after her?

Paris' debut novel was one of my favourite from the past year so I had really high expectations for her second novel and she really did live it up to them. What I think that I liked the most was that it was completely different from her first book in the story line as well as how the plot is laid out. There is nothing more refreshing where the author strays from their other novel(s) and does something completely different. There is still what I will call Paris' flare but she does not rely on Behind Closed Doors to define this book, this may disappoint some readers if they are looking for something along the lines of Behind Closed Doors part two and I think in the beginning I was but this book was Sold to me by the end.

Cass' deterioration within this book is truly the highlight of it. The details that Paris needed to lay out in this book are very well done and it was really interesting to see her bring everything altogether. From Cass beginning to believe that she is suffering from the same memory loss and early on-set dimension that her mother eventually passed away from to the events that she is so sure that she is experiencing it is really well done. Paris does a good job of showing the paranoia that Cass has around losing her memory and how just forgetting one simple thing can spiral things out of for Cass and makes things even worse in her life and the isolation that it causes not just from her friends and coworkers but also from her husband.

In a way this book was may seem less compelling that Behind Closed Doors as the story is not as dramatic or sinister but this does not mean that it is any way boring. This also does not mean that I did not enjoy the book, actually the opposite of that especially when you really get in to the book, I just think that if people are looking for a Behind Closed doors repeat, this book is not it.

This book is like a slow burn that is completely worth it in the end. Paris knows how to bring suspense to her writing and have reader devour her books. I look forward to the next book by Paris.

Enjoy!!!

It’s a dark and stormy night, literally, at the opening of B.A. Paris’ The Breakdown. Cass, a happily married woman who recently lost her mother to early onset dementia, takes a backroad home from a party and comes across a woman parked in the rain in a pull off. Cass can see the woman, but can’t see the anyone else in the car. When the woman doesn’t try and get out of her car, Cass decides to keep driving. But the next morning Cass hears a woman’s been murdered: the woman she passed by on the way home.

What Cass comes to realize is that she knows the woman who was murdered. This, along with mysterious, silent phone calls, gives birth to a deep paranoia. A paranoia that’s only made worse by the fact that she’s begun to forget things just like her mother had. Cass begins to turn from a happy school teacher into the perfect picture of a hysterical woman.

This chilling tale goes deeper than one woman’s struggle to pull herself back together after a murder so close to home. Cass’s story echoes the struggle of the validity of a woman’s feelings. Paris forces the reader to come to terms with their own ideas of what makes a woman “hysterical”. Is Cass a narrator we can trust, or is this all happening in her head?

The Breakdown will keep its readers up all night, part from fear and part from needing to find out the truth.

So it’s not winning thriller of the year in my book but it was an acceptably entertaining, light and fast paced read that I got through in one lazy Sunday afternoon. While the first third of the book was intriguing, the middle lagged with some quite predictable twists and a main character that came across more gullible than suffering mental incapacity. The end came up on me like a brick wall and then it was all over. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Breakdown by B.A. Paris is a psychological thriller about the descent into madness or the fear of it. Told through the eyes and mind of Cass, a woman whose mother suffered from dementia at a young age and who is paranoid that she is going to fall prey to the same disease.

"...I rack my brains, trying to remember, trying to guess what we might have decided to buy. It could be anything-perfume, jewelry, a book-but nothing rings a bell. Had I forgotten? Memories of Mum, uncomfortable ones, flood my mind and I push them away quickly. It isn't the same, I tell myself fiercely, I am not the same. By tomorrow, I'll have remembered..."

Driving home on a rainy night from a party, Cass takes a dark rural road through the woods against her husband's advice. Along the way she spots a car pulled over but she knows that she cannot stop. Who knows why the car is stopped. It could be a trap on this secluded road. As she passes she thinks she sees a woman in the drivers seat. But she does not want to take the chance, she has heard of gangs setting traps on dark roads for people who stop to help broken down vehicles. But what she learns the next morning horrifies her.

"...In the bathroom, I lock the door and turn on the shower, wanting to drown out the voice in my head telling me that the woman who's been found dead is the one that I passed in my car last night. Feeling horribly shaky, I sit down on the edge of the bath and bring up the Internet, looking for news. It's Breaking News on the BBC but there are no details. All it says is that a woman has been found dead in her car near Browbury in Sussex..."

Cass can't stop thinking what might have been had she stopped. Could she have saved the woman or is it possible that she might have become another victim of the killer. Now she is wondering if she is safe. Could she have been spotted late that night on that road. Does the killer know it was her? This goes through her mind as well as the possibility that it is all in her mind. That she is creating a reality around the murder of the woman. That she is now showing signs of the illness that destroyed her mother.

"...And while I wait, he asks me gentle questions, wanting to know what triggered my meltdown. I listen as Matthew explains about me barricading myself into the sitting room while he was at work and, when Dr. Deakin asks if there's been any other worrying behavior on my part. Matthew mentions that the week before I'd become hysterical because I thought I saw a huge knife lying on the side in the kitchen when in reality it was only a small kitchen knife. I sense them exchanging glances and they begin speaking about me as if I'm not there. I hear the word 'breakdown' but I don't care because the pills have already begun to work their magic..."

This is the essence of The Breakdown. Is it a murder mystery of a woman on a secluded road in the woods or is it the loss of Cass's mind and memory as she slips into madness? It is also its greatest weakness of this novel. If fluctuates between the two and never really develops one or the other. Paris's first novel, Behind Closed Doors, is much more intense and driven. The Breakdown is a step backward in plot and storytelling.

I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed the twisting plot and the air of doubt throughout the narrative. I only felt able to give a 4 star rating though as the incident with the mobile phone and the students in the pub felt like one coincidence too far!

Twitteresque reviews are for books where I never wrote a full review but I want to give you a flavour of how I felt during the book. All in 140 characters or less! These are all books I read during the summer, but I didn't want to leave them drift away without reviewing them.

Twitteresque review:
Kept me guessing and double guessing right till the very end. This was my first book from this author and it won't be my last.

I have to say, I think this will be my last book by this author. Her last book was a three for me and this one became a DNF after many tries to find some kind of interest in it.

The blurb intrigued me. I needed this book. However, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. The lack of character development mixed with the not so great execution of who done it just left me feeling deflated. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the who and why, and that's with me DNF'ing.