The Therapist is an engaging thriller! It tells the story of Alice who moves into a new house with a secret. I read it in one day and was surprised by the ending. This is the third book by B.A. Paris that I have read, and it is my favorite. I would highly recommend it if you like suspenseful novels as much as I do.

This is my favorite book of B.A. Paris's to date. The reveals and complications that Alice encounters about her home, her loved ones, herself, and her neighbors throughout this story are interesting and engaging, and while there was at least one misstep that Alice took that had me screeching at her to be more careful and observant, I always felt like the tension simmered at just the right level. The fear of feeling like the danger is always INSIDE the house really came through, and obviously when you are newly arrived in a close knit neighborhood, it's hard to know who and what to trust as an outsider. The ending felt a bit rushed, but that didn't ruin an otherwise good story.

I love B.A. Paris' work. The Dilemma and Bring Me Back are two of my favorites, and when I saw The Therapist available, I couldn't wait to dive in.

When Alice agrees to move to London with her boyfriend Leo, she's not prepared for The Circle. The gated community seems idyllic, but beneath the surface, everyone is hiding a secret. After a welcome party reveals some disturbing truths, Alice becomes increasingly invested in the neighborhood's mysteries. What really happened between the previous occupants of her home? Is she really safe in the Circle?

I enjoyed this book and I think it's B.A. Paris' best to date.

Alice is an interesting character. While we see the events through her eyes, and she seems trustworthy, I wouldn't necessarily call her reliable. There's clearly some unresolved issues stemming from her past trauma, and while she's not untrustworthy, the fervor and determination with which she approaches Nina and Oliver's case puts the reader on edge. Is there anything happening in the house? Is Alice seeing things? I loved that added tension and thought it created a sliver of deniability that made the plot that much more suspenseful.

And talk about a cast of unreliable characters. Every voice we are introduced to has a secret, a shady behavior, a story. If you like your suspense with twists and questionable motives, this will definitely be the book for you. No spoilers, of course, but there was enough doubt that until the final riveting chapters, you really don't know who to point the finger at. It could be anyone.

There were a few little crumbs, but the major revelation was satisfying and executed well, even if some of the leaps to get there felt a tad rushed or on-the-nose. I think most readers will love the structure, especially with the anonymous flashbacks thrown in.

Overall, The Therapist is a twisty, layered examination of trust and trauma set against an idyllic gated community. I'd recommend to fans of The Boy, Desperate Housewives, or anyone looking for a creepy neighborhood suspense. Out in July, add this to your summer TBRs.

Big thanks to St. Martin's for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

I'd looked forward to this one, but in the end, I felt like the reader was being gas lighted.

As Alice is getting to know her neighbors, she discovers a devastating secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before.
Everyone is a suspect in Nina's murder. Alice is boring and obsessed, and no one is trustworthy because the author is manipulating the reader to keep up suspense, and counterintuitively, the pace begins to crawl and the suspicions become repetitive. (It's Tamsin, Will, Connor. No, Edward, Eve, Leo, Ben.)

NetGalley/St. Martin's Press

July 13, 2021. Print length: 304 pages.

The Therapist, by B. A. Paris

Short Take: A great book for people who can’t handle much excitement.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

Hello Duckies! Well, I finally broke down and made the switch from Nook to Kindle, and although the reading experience isn’t terribly different, the menus and settings aren’t the same, and I am just too old to learn something new so I’m a teensy bit frustrated with it. That said, I am digging the larger storage capacity, thinner & lighter device, and the waterproofness (is that a word? I genuinely don’t know) given my proclivity to spills. And I can’t help but feel a certain kinship with the protagonist of The Therapist as she gets all spun up working her way through a bunch of mundane stuff that nobody else really cares about.

In The Therapist, Alice moves in with her previously-long-distance boyfriend Leo, to an exclusive gated community in London. What she doesn’t know is that the last woman who lived in the house was murdered, and pretty much everyone in the neighborhood had a reason to do it. For reasons of her own, Alice becomes obsessed with finding the killer, even when it starts to look like he may be closer than she thinks.

My sweet nerdlings, I’ve written before that there’s a difference between mysteries and thrillers, and this one is firmly in the “mystery” camp. Alice talks to a bunch of people, uncovers secrets, and eventually gets answers, but for the first 90% of the book the stakes are so low as to be nonexistent. She thinks there might be someone breaking into her house, but there’s no evidence of it, nothing to make the reader worry for her. Might be something bad, might be a bad dream, no big deal. Leo has skeletons in his closet but they are pretty tame and nonthreatening.

Also, Alice is just terrible as a character. She’s desperate for any kind of acceptance from anyone, male, female, old, young, doesn’t matter, so she absolutely believes whoever she spoke to last. She’s constantly changing her mind, and has no personality of her own.

There are entirely too many paragraphs & conversations revolving around living arrangements - you stay here till this day, and I’ll stay at this other place after that, and what about on Tuesday or maybe Thursday instead, and so on and so forth.

I hate to say it, but this book commits one of the cardinal sins: It’s boring. The bad guy is pretty clearly telegraphed from the beginning, Alice brings nothing to the table, and for most of the book, very little actually happens. Alice reads books, drinks coffee, talks to a whole bunch of people who are pretty much interchangeable, and makes plans to stay at her friend’s house or maybe for Leo to visit one of his friends for a few days or maybe for her friend to stay at her house or… you get the idea. Oh and sometimes she hears something, but it’s probably nothing.

The finale is decent, but by then, I was over it & just wanted to be done.

The Nerd’s Rating: TWO HAPPY NEURONS (and some coffee, because a) it sounded really good and b) yawn.)

Alice is a character that I didn't know if I could trust and some of her decisions frustrated me, but that is what makes a book that you want to keep coming back to. Leo also frustrated me and I didn't know where this book was going, but I enjoyed it! The Circle is not a community I would like to live in although it sounds fantastic. I understood why Alice wanted to get to the bottom of Nina's murder because of her sister being named Nina. I did not figure this one out! Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book! I did a combo read and listen and the audiobook narrator was great!

B. A. Paris has a knack for making you uneasy from the first page. All her books keep you off balance from the start, not quite sure if events are real or imagined. If your narrator is sane or insane. And no matter how much the characters move around - different locations, different cities, even different countries - the story still hems you in, it’s tight, confining, very enclosed. Which adds to the suspense and thrill and the certainty danger is right around the corner.

Once I started reading The Therapist I couldn’t put it down. And I could never quite get my bearings. Alice and Leo seem like a happy couple, haven’t known each other all that long but something seemed to click. And they are moving into a lovely newly renovated house in an exclusive gated community. Maybe a bit more Leo’s dream house than Alice’s, but she is eager to start a life with Leo, get to know her neighbours and become part of that community. She’s been sad and unwell since her parents’ deaths and this feels like a new start.

Except – except – something is a little off. Once Alice starts talking to the neighbours she learns a shocking secret about her new house, and she becomes obsessed with trying to find out what happened. And it was at that point that I became obsessed with the story and couldn’t turn pages fast enough. My questions never seemed to stop: is Leo not what he seems, did he do it, was he having the affair with Nina, is Alice not just sad and unwell but mentally ill, is she the killer, could she have killed her parents, why is Thomas there and what does he really want, is Helen even real, is there a supernatural element at work? On and on. Just when I thought I had things figured out the story would take a sharp turn and I would have to start over.

Author Paris populates her stories with characters who are hysterically suspicious on the one hand and altogether too trusting on the other. Often their actions make no sense, but that makes for a gripping story. Everything is told from Alice’s point of view, and that means all you have is her interpretation of things, and her retelling. And of course “the Past” chapters where the therapist talks through journal pages. But talks to who? What seems so straightforward at the start quickly becomes another mystery.

The Therapist is another powerful story from this author, full of suspense and danger that will grab you and not let you go until the last page. Thanks to St. Martin's Publishing Group for providing an advance copy via NetGalley for my review. All opinions are my own. I thoroughly enjoyed – and was scared by – this story and recommend it.

Alice and Leo are in love. Leo finds them this super-elite place to live called, "The Circle." Alice is not sure...but, she wants to be with Leo so she agrees to move in. We meet some of the neighbors as the plot develops. Some are mean and snooty, some too friendly. For sure something doesn't add up as we find out more about the death that took place in The Circle (before Leo and Alice move-in) and the secrets around it.

Buddy read with Jayme! I enjoyed it a bit more than she did. I agree with her that the ending was a little over the top. But, it seems to me all of the other BA Paris novels I have read were too. Some much more than this one. (Like Bring Me Back). I think that was my least favorite of this type (thriller) and a bit crazy. I liked the first part of the book the best; enjoying the setting and getting to know the characters.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC to read for review. Recommended for mystery and suspense lovers.

When Alice finds out a woman was murdered in the house her partner bought for them, she is immediately drawn to solving her murder. Alice jumps from idea to idea easily, often nudged by a newly unveiled tidbit, making her paranoid and question the motives of everyone around her. Is she the victim of gaslighting or what is really happening at her new house?

BA Paris has crafted another solid thriller in The Therapist and it is an enjoyable, light read. (However, if you are looking for a strong, intelligent female protagonist, look elsewhere!)

3+/5 stars

This one has been getting mixed reviews, but it's up there for me as one of my favorites. I was there with Alice and all her theories. I bought in to every single one and was just as shocked as she was to learn the truth. I was also shocked when my I learned the truth about her. My only complaint was I still had some unanswered questions at the end, particularly around Lorna. There were a couple times I got confused with all the names and trying to sort them out. But as I've come to love B.A. Paris' books, I'm willing overlook the minor things that the bug me because at the end of the day, i read a great thriller. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Alice and Leo take their relationship to a more serious level by moving in together to a new home in The Circle, a gated community of 12 residences in Finsbury Park, London. It seems perfect, until Alice discovers disturbing information about the previous owners. In her relentless pursuit to discover the truth about what happened to Nina, a young therapist, and her husband Oliver while they lived in The Circle, Alice finds her new neighbors less than forthcoming. Why are the neighbors so reluctant to speak about the past?

Alice soon discovers that appearances can be deceiving, and the couples who call The Circle their home are guarding personal secrets behind closed doors. And Alice and Leo themselves are no strangers to pretense, each hiding ruinous secrets of their own. Will revealing the truth set the record straight, or place The Circle's residents in harm's way and lead to even more devastating consequences?

B.A. Paris is a masterful storyteller, creating fascinating characters and probing the intimate details of human behavior and couples' relationships. The novel's plot is propelled by intriguing, misleading clues that lead to shocking, unexpected plot twists, making The Therapist a pulse-pounding psychological thriller that is impossible to put down.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Lots of twists in this one. And all of those twists kept me guessing. I wasn’t expecting the final twist. Fast paced. A decent mix of likable and unlivable characters.

I’d recommend this to others.

That was a good read! I just finished this book during the day because I had to know how it ended! This is a tightly told story that keeps you on your toes. Really, the author sets it up so it could be anyone. There are a lot of characters, but you know just enough about them to keep them straight and everyone is a suspect. Everything about this book is well developed and it carries a good, readable rhythm. Well done.

I received a prepub copy of this book for my honest review.

Another easy thriller from B.A. Paris. The story was easy to follow, however a lot of the characters were not particulary likeable. The end was twisty and not expected which made for a nice surprise at the end.

This book was great and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. So many interesting characters (and suspects). I never saw the real killer coming. The narrator of the audiobook did a great job. I will definitely recommend this book!

This book bored me to tears for the first few chapters, though it did eventually pick up. I would not read it again, but others will love it.

I must start by saying from the very first page of this book I was hooked. In fact a lot of housework did not get done because of it. Not the first book by Paris that I have read, and certainly will not be the last.

A simple story, or so I thought, of Alice and Leo moving into a house he bought because they were only seeing each other on weekends and this was a solution to their problem. But there were many more problems ahead of them. Alice was never told that someone was murdered in the house and when she finds out Leo failed to tell her....well, things get mighty frantic after that.

Alice then becomes obsessed with the murder especially when told the person accused did not do it! And so we find ourselves involved with secrets and surprises.....I kept asking myself "How would I react in this situation?"

Place this one on your TBR list. Release date July 13, 2021 Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC, definitely a #fivestar read.

I found the description of the house a little cryptic. A silly thing but I swear how many rooms changed there were on the second floor changed a couple of times,. I only noticed it because the house being cheap because it was the scene of a murder/suicide was such a plot point. At any rate, it was a solid beach read. I think I shouldn't read their books so closely, I think they are meant to be just fun and quick. Alice made a lot of dumb choices and I really had to overlook them to get into the story.

Alice knows the burden of a tragedy, and a secret. And when she moves in with her boyfriend, Leo, and into their beautiful house in the The Circle, a gated and tight-nit community, she realizes she’s not the only one with secrets to keep. An unsolved murder and mysterious things happening in her home lead her on a search for a killer.

While the backdrop murder and mystery surrounding it are intriguing, I was constantly pulled out of the story by Alice’s unbelievable involvement in it. The dynamics of the neighborhood are interesting, but incredibly complex. There were many times I was spurred on by the details of the deception, but ultimately uninterested in the outcome. A lot of layers were superfluous and clearly only meant to confuse. But the obfuscation covered up too much, with the real culprit coming out of left field.

Just messy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

B.A. Paris is one of my favorite authors, and this book did not disappoint! Alice moves into a new house on The Circle with her boyfriend, Leo. When someone shows up to a party Alice hosts, she assumes it is a neighbor. She discovers that the man was not who she thought he was. Alice looks to uncover things that happened in her house in the past by learning more about her neighbors. As Alice was told, "Don't trust anyone."