B.A Paris does it again! Absolutely amazing! This unputdownable thriller will have you reading all night! Loved the twist! Thanks NetGalley, St martins press and of Course B.A Paris for this wonderful read!

3.5 stars

I really struggled with rating this one because I love BA Paris and parts of this book but other parts just fell flat.

To start, Amelie is a decent character and I definitely felt for her but I wasn’t overly invested. Especially when her biggest struggles boil down to a miscommunication I just found hard to believe would happen.

The story itself is told in two parts and most of what I loved was within the first half. It was told in dual timeline (which I can’t say enough how much I love), and kept me flipping the pages trying to merge the past and present to find out what the heck was going on. My intrigue as well as having short chapters made it easy to fly through.

However, the second part is where we hit a snag. Mainly, the story loses its momentum. There were still pieces to the puzzle that needed to be worked out, but the pace and intensity to figure out what was happening just wasn’t the same. Which is probably what made the ending fall short for me. The story was dragging on to where I was hoping a big jaw dropping twist was waiting at the end but never got it. The ending just wrapped up and plainly spoke what I had already suspected.

BA Paris is still one of my favorites and I will continue to read anything she puts out. Behind Closed Doors is still one of my favorite thrillers.

It was pretty good. I liked the characters but felt that there was just too much piled on Amelie. More character development would have helped. And a few too many loose ends. But still- great writing and a good mystery.

I received an advanced copy from the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.

I think at this point I have read all of B.A. Paris books and have certainly enjoyed reading them, although some are better than others. This novel was a solid 4 stars and stretching into 5 as the story went on, even though I had figured quite a bit out. However, the very ending of this novel was beyond disappointing. It just feels like the story ended, but was not complete. And that is why I dropped it to 3 stars.

I do love how this story unfolds in the past and the present and this author is fantastic about slowly unfolding mysteries, however, so much of this novel kind of felt like magically things worked out. Like her father's financial status and will after the fact, right when she needed it. Just a little too convenient. Like I said, I did enjoy this novel and I will likely keep picking up her novels, some are just hit and miss and this one felt a bit incomplete in the end.

As someone who has LOVED previous B.A. Paris thrillers, I was surprised by how much this one did not measure up to her others!


What Worked for Me - For the first third of "The Prisoner" I was along for the ride! As is typical with B.A. Paris thrillers, you're thrown into the thrill pretty much immediately and I love that. The main character is kidnapped and held prisoner in a pitch black room. It's intense and unnerving, and the setup is guaranteed nightmare fuel for me - which I somehow enjoy reading. Without spoilers though, the plot and many of the characters at the beginning of the story are not the same for the second and third acts. And unfortunately, my enjoyment of this book ended pretty quickly.

What I Struggled With - Unlike the beginning of the book which begins very quickly, the pacing and setup for the rest of the book felt incredibly slow! Most of the story is told through the inner dialogue of the main character, Amelie, and she was difficult for me to root for. You know those thrillers where by the end you're pretty much indifferent as to whether the main character makes it out alive? Sorry, Amelie, but I rooted for your demise several times. She could be easily gullible one moment but then super sharp the next, and I mean - okay, me too - but reading it was just frustratingly inconsistent and too convenient to what the author needed for the plot.

Billionaires, kidnapping, murder, a down on her luck protagonist… this book had all the building blocks of an excellent thriller! I enjoyed the story for the most part and found the short chapters switching back and forth from past and present to be quick and engaging.

The reason I couldn’t rate this one higher is because I found the storyline and characters really unbelievable. In a good thriller the story might be far fetched but the author and characters make me believe in the story, but this one I just couldn’t get there! I also felt like the ending was too rushed and needed more to it.

Ultimately, if you are a fan of BA Paris I would give this one a go, but wouldn’t recommend starting here! Behind Closed Doors and The Therapist are my favorites by the author so I would start there!

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to love this one and unfortunately I feel indifferent about it.

The beginning starts out interesting revealing Amelie and her husband have been kidnapped. It’s also told in “past” and “present” chapters which is a nice storytelling device. It goes downhill from there.

Amelie is orphaned and finds friends and a life in England. She marries a horrible man for money. She ends up seeing him murder her friend and nearly dies herself by his hand. Then, she’s kidnapped and she survives. I saw the kidnapper from a mile away. The ending was also lackluster.

I don’t know, this just didn’t mesh well for me. I’ve liked some of the author’s books but this wasn’t a favorite.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book.

This is my third B.A. Paris book and I've found them to be pretty hit or miss. This one started out well, got really chaotic, and then ended strangely.

Amelie is kidnapped and being held captive in a dark room after getting involved with a powerful man, Ned Hawthorne. The first part of the book is told in alternating past and present chapters allowing you to put the puzzle together slowly. The second part is all messy resolution. It wasn't the best I've ever read, but that said, I did finish it all on a lazy Sunday, so it certainly kept my interest well enough.

Thoroughly enjoyed The Prisoner, The characters were likable and relatable and the storyline kept me guessing until the end. I could not put the book down, just waiting to see what would happen next. Another great novel from B.A. Paris.
I received an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

B.A. Paris’s latest is yet another terrific thriller. Amelie is a kidnapping victim. She’s imprisoned in pitch black darkness and somewhere else nearby is her billionaire husband, Ned, who has also been kidnapped, but who really doesn’t care if they chop her up and send the pieces to his own billionaire father who is refusing to pay ransom. And just prior to this catastrophe, Amelie was being kept prisoner (although in a gilded cage) by Ned. How the heck did Amelie, sweet, young, orphaned, trying to get into law school and stay solvent and not homeless, land in this situation?

The book is divided into two parts: The Kidnap and The Reckoning. Part One ends as Amelie is released, but to what circumstances? Part Two is a sort of satisfying wrap-up of the consequences that led Amelie to her precarious position, although I admit that I felt it ended too abruptly — there still were a few loose ends. Nevertheless, it was an engrossing thriller with a central character, Amelie, that you can care about and root for.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

The Prisoner is a story about Amelie, a then-sixteen-year-old orphan who managed to somehow outsmart the school system and the government and flee the country after the death of her father. She ends up on the streets in London, and is adopted into a found family of friends she talks about caring about but we don't really see it. Through these friends she meets and gets a job working for a billionaire named Ned Hawthorpe, who she later marries. But not for the reasons you'd think.

In our first scene, Amelie and Ned are being kidnapped together, and then we get flashes of backstory in alternating chapters. This is more confusing than interesting or suspenseful, because there wasn't enough detail in either timeline to really keep me invested. Full disclosure, I only really picked it back up again for the review - it would've been a loss of interest DNF for me otherwise.

Here is my issue:
The stakes were way too low during Amelie's imprisonment (she felt safer with her captor than she had with anyone???) and when you think the honestly agonizing story is finally coming to an end and the timelines link up, that's when the story starts to get good.

I did read the last 30% or so much more enthusiastically than the first portion, but I still have a problem with the way this is written. The dialogue is stilted and there is a point where a character explains everything in detail, which is lazy; it's like the author took their detailed outline for the novel and planted it word-for-word in this character's mouth. After reading, I was surprised when I realized I have read and highly enjoyed other books from B.A. Paris, because this one just does not compare.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I believe this is my second read from B.A. Paris and overall I enjoyed it! This story was full of twists and turns. It kept me “turning pages” late into the night. My only dislike was the ending felt rushed and a little incomplete.

I would definitely recommend this book. It had me hooked from the beginning and kept my attention all the way through. I was constantly guessing where the author was going with the story which is a good thing because I dislike when you figure it out right away. I love a good story full of twists and turns and this one did not disappoint. I was right with Amelia the whole time. The author did a great job of expressing all of her emotions. I look forward to reading other books by B.A. Paris.

3.75 STARS

Drawn in from page one, I quickly became engrossed with Paris’s tale of greed and evil men, and the lengths to which those men would go to satisfy their revenge. The main character finds herself caught in the middle of the insatiable bloodlust when she’s kidnapped and held hostage in an oppressive dark abyss, for what she perceives nearly a month.

Orphaned at seventeen, essentially left alone in the world, Amelie’s greatest fear is that no one, other than perhaps the kind soul who took her in a few years before, will report her missing. But little does she know that those with even the slightest connection to her are either dead or have found themselves in mortal danger.

Right out of the gate, Paris ratchets up the suspense to a hair-raising level. My kind of story—a heaping helping of action, suspense, and intrigue. Try as I might, I couldn’t fathom the motive behind Amelie’s abduction, other than guilt by association, as her recently betrothed, no-good monster of a husband was also taken. Amelie should have married for love.

I’m sad to say, I felt the story fell apart at the eighty-percent mark. I guess you could say the end hardly justified the means. To avoid a spoiler or two, I’ll leave it at that and set my sights on another of Ms. Paris’s novels, as I definitely admire her style. Much appreciation to Ms. Paris, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the ARC.

It was a slow and chaotic start but eventually turned into a fast paced thriller. I would probably give it 3.5 as I like this author’s writing.

I like a good thriller/mystery! I did finish this one in a few short days. The bad guy really made my skin crawl.

I wish some of the other characters were more developed however. The main problem is the end. It's just dialogue of everything being explained to the main character, telling instead of showing. Half the fun of these types of books is suspending disbelief, but this one really didn't seem plausible.

I recommend this book to any B.A. Paris fan and anyone that wants an easy thriller to read on vacation.

Hello, everyone!

Today's blog is about The Prisoner, by B.A. Paris. This will be released on or around November 1, 2022.

This book goes back and forth between the "Past" and the "Present" and eventually all turns into the present. It take the reader into Amelie's life and her hard past. She does what she can to overcome her obstacles and life finally seems to be on the way, when she makes a deal with Ned, (SIDE NOTE: My kindle edition has the husband all through the book listed as NED, while Goodreads and other readers are calling him Jed-go figure lol) a rich magazine owner. He also is rich via his family, but he has all sorts of secrets. Secrets that come out when Amelie is thrown into his world. All she wanted to do was make a a life for herself but it just doesn't seem to be possible.

A better synopsis from Goodreads:

Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Jed Hawthorne.

But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Jed?
Now for my two cents: I usually don't mind switching back between the past and the present in books, but I found myself a little bored with the parts where Amelie was in the room where she was held captive. That was because you had to get to the "past" parts to get any of inkling of what was going on. There was only so much a writer can do having someone describe a room in which they are locked.

So, after awhile, it DID start moving but as the end came, I kind of felt underwhelmed. B.A. Paris will probably remain one of my automatic read authors but this one was just too slow and for me, unsatisfying at the end. Don't let that stop you, though. Seems a lot of people have enjoyed it so far on Goodreads! Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this opportunity. No review was required. What are you reading?

I was conflicted between giving this 3 or 4 stars because the ending fell short. I'll start off with the beginning, though, I was HOOKED from the first page!! I stayed up late reading till my eyes couldn't stay open anymore. The first part was INCREDIBLE!! fast-paced, so many questions leaving you to want to find out what in the world is going on!

However, as soon as I started the book's second part, I had no urgency to finish... I lost interest in the plot and felt there was so much extra information that either didn't make sense or felt incomplete. This book held so much potential to be amazing if the ending didn't fall short. I was annoyed and frustrated with questions that were finally answered because it wasn't what I expected or what I hoped for.

Overall, the pacing was fast until the second part after that, I found it difficult to push through. There was only one main character (Amelie), and she developed a bit in the story, but PHEW, I became SO frustrated with some of the decisions she made... thinking about it now makes me cringe and shake my head *smh* If the ending didn't feel rushed, I would recommend this book to everyone!! I still plan on reading B.A. Paris's book and recently found [book:Behind Closed Doors|29437949] while thrifting. This one felt bleh....

Amelie marries Ned for auspicious reasons. Little did she know that becoming captive as a kidnap victim fared better than the life she was living with Ned. In fact, Amelie agreed to just a 30-day marriage, with a settlement once that time frame has passed. However, neither Amelia nor Ned are able to live the days of their agreement when they both become part of a scheme that neither of them understands.

Amelie's life before being married to the billionaire was full of troubles. She thought she knew troubles, but now they are of an entirely different sort. The fact that Ned was also kidnapped is something that is confusing to both of them. With a slow-burning mystery, readers see what circumstances brought Amelie and Ned together. It was at the point Ned lost a few points in my books because of something about his past. In fact, it was Ned's past as to why he wanted to marry Amelie and for such a short period of time.

With past and present colliding more than once in this intriguing story by B. A. Paris it was impossible not to feel for Amelie and all that she experienced in the pages of this book. The question as to whether either Amelie or Ned would be released was more than enough to keep me invested in this story.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

B. A. Paris did it again and wrote a captivating book that I didn’t want to put down. The chapters change from past to present that leave you wanting to know more to help figure out the plots and twists. Excellent details of describing senses while Amelie was held prisoner in the pitch dark. I can’t wait until my friends read this book! Many thanks to NetGalley.