I will preface by saying I did not get to finish this book because my NetGalley audio had missing chapters. I was a psychological thriller myself because I thought I was going absolutely insane when the chapter numbers jumped so quickly. I would have liked to finish this because I had so many strong emotions about the characters and was intrigued. This was my first BA Paris and I wish I could have had the full experience.

This was a short one from a favorite author! Full of mystery, everyone is a suspect in this one. The ending left a lot of unanswered questions. Not my favorite by this author, but still worth listening. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

What would you do if you were trapped in a pitch black room with no recollection of going there? B.A. Paris crafts the tale of Amelie trapped in a “prison” and her escape out in her latest thriller, The Prisoner.

Amelie seemed to always have bad luck following her; parents deceased, lost job, lost home. Luckily, she has made some good friends on her side that are working with her in London. The best thing? Meeting and marrying the illustrious Jed Hawthorne, billionaire with a controlling father.

In the blink of an eye however; Amelie wakes up in a pitch black room with no memory of being placed there. She thinks that Jed is somewhere upstairs but cannot get to where he is captured. Leaving her with countless questions and in time, a brighter future than living with her new husband.

I found the premise for The Prisoner captivating and was yearning to know instantly why Amelie landed in the “prison.” The books beginning chapters made me want to continue reading and rooting for our main character. However; the story soon became confusing with the back and forth present and past chapters. The flow wasn’t happening and I soon discovered the mystery of Amelie’s location. The ending chapters wrapped up everything in a way that could have been shortened into a one chapter length epilogue. However; I do see that many readers who enjoy B. A. Paris’s other books and mysteries may take to her latest. I would recommend listening to this on audio if given the chance, as the narrator paints.an eerie picture of what is happening.

Oh so good. Just when I knew what wha happening, I was wrong. And again I knew the ending. Nope again. I shall go back and read again to see how I Mersey stuff. So so good.

I listened to this 3 times because I felt like I was missing something. There were scenes mentioned at the end which were never part of the story. Very confusing and frustrating.

Thank you to the publisher for ALC and ARC of The Prisoner. The book started with a bang and I was curious what led Amelia to this situation. It was intense and the flashback sort of slowed the story down. The second half of the story was basically the writer telling us how the kidnapping happened and why rather then leading us it. This made it a little less entertaining. Amelia friends were not developed enough and they were interchangeable. I did enjoy the narration.

This story had SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. But it didn’t deliver for me. Towards the end, I wanted it to stop so that it wouldn’t keep spoiling the story, but alas it just unraveled. At first, the book showed as 4hrs of listening time, but after realizing how many chapters were missing. I downloaded it to get the full story.

⬆️
*Utilizing two separate timelines increased my interest and forced me to continue listening to find answers
*Tension in the Hawthorpe family added additional suspense and didn’t strong arm the reader with corruption of power
*Descriptions of the room Amelie is kept we’re vivid and foreboding. Captive is one thing, but captive in pitch black is another level of terrifying.

➖
*Amelie’s friends were forgettable and didn’t add much for me. Thank goodness for the accents or I’d never have distinguished them.
*How much trauma does one girl need to face?! Amelie’s had it rough.

⬇️
*Narrator lacked pacing that would help build suspense for a thriller.
*Amelie was a VERY calm captive for a 20 year old, working out quite a few tricks during her captivity which just made the situation seem so fantastical, especially for someone so naive about the way the world works.
*Kidnapper was obvious (to me) early on, so the red herrings never threw me off course, but instead just annoyed me.
*Oh that ending. I can’t even go there. Just sad, predictable, lazy writing.

I’ll need to tell my students about: language, trauma, loss of parent, mental health, violence

***Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the free ALC prior to publication. All opinions are my own.***

I really enjoyed this book. The plot is interesting and has a lot of unexpected twists and turns. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was great.

The Prisoner is told in two timelines which feature Amelie’s past, and present. Amelie is an orphan, poor, homeless and on her own. So suspending reality, a billionaire asks her to marry him so he can avoid marrying the girl his father wants him to marry. Next, the newlyweds are kidnapped….fast paced mystery grabs the reader early and never let go.

The Prisoner by BA Paris was an exceptionally engrossing and quick listen. I switched back and forth between reading an egalley of it and listening to an audio galley. The narrator was wonderful. She did a great job with different accents of various characters and she didn't have any affectation that ever pulled me out of the book.

The Prisoner seemed short, so I checked GoodReads and it says it is 302 pages. I think it was a nearly perfect length. I loved the character of Analiese from the beginning of the novel and her story made me root from her right out of the gate. Her mother died when she was a young child and her father died when she was just 17 which left her without family and nearly penniless to make it on her own. She ran away to London to avoid being taken in by child protection and was ultimately living on the streets when the kindness of a stranger led to a beautiful friendship and eventually a decent job for a magazine owned by an obnoxious billionaire.

The book starts with Analiese and her husband having been kidnapped and held for ransom. The chapters then flash back and forth between Analiese's backstory and her current predicament. While I was totally addicted to the story as I read it, when I stepped away from it and gave it any thought, I do realize it is a very unlikely (though not impossible) plot. As other readers have said, the ending was problematic. Possibly by the time the novel is published, the ending can be tweaked some? Without giving away spoilers, I will just say I didn't feel the ending did justice to the nightmarish situation that Analiese had been through in her life up to that point. There was just too much bad and not nearly enough good and the small bit of good and possibility of good that was hinted at at the end was not what the reader would want for a heroine.

In any case, I am a longtime BA Paris fan and will continue to read everything she writes the moment I can get my hands on it! I have loved her most recent books that have more of a family theme to them. The Prisoner is less moody and more straight thriller, but it works as a popcorn-thriller that the reader can just sink into for a few hours and enjoy.

Like all of B.A. Paris' s novels, the short chapters and thrilling subject matter make this a quick and propulsive read. Amelie has had a hard life, orphaned as a teenager she flees to London and becomes part of a group of women who become like family to her. In the present she is kidnapped and taken prisoner along with her extremely wealthy husband, Ned. Through chapters that flip between past and present we learn how Amelie got into this position and why she actually feels safer locked in a dark room all alone then she felt with her husband. Though the end of the story did answer most of the questions you'll be left asking, some of them are quite far fetched and will probably leave you with more questions. Overall a fun and fast paced read, but not Paris' best. The narrator of the audiobook was perfect, but unfortunately this advance copy of the audiobook was missing many chapters, leaving me extremely confused until I referenced the physical ARC.

Thank you to the author, publisher, narrator and Net Galley for providing a free ebook / eaudio copy of the book in exchange for my review.

BA Paris is a bit of a hit-or-miss author for me. I have liked a few by the author, but they haven't been favorites and I haven't recommended the books to others. But this one sounded good, so I took a chance, and ended up being given an ebook and an eaudio advanced copy to read/listen to and review.

The narration for the audiobook was good, enjoyable to listen to. But, overall, I didn't really care for this book. It was just - boring. The book was underwhelming and I kept hoping for other, outside things to happen to liven up the book. IT didn't happen. There were several points where I felt like the book just wasn't realistic, and it was silly things like getting a marriage license without both people being present.

Possibly trigger warnings for topics such as murder, kidnapping, rape, abuse

2 stars for 'it was ok"

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 struggles to build a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married a handsome billionaire, Jed Hawthorne on a whim during a Las Vegas trip.

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 felt with her husband Jed?

Initially, the description stated “Jed” when the narrator definitely says “Ned” which made things a bit odd. I will say that this is a very quick read, the suspense level was lacking a bit for me, and goes back and forth between past and present timelines. I enjoyed that the chapters were short, and it kept me engaged.

Although this was a quick read, I felt zero connection with any of the characters. I kept looking for more twists and turns that just weren’t there.

**thank you so much to NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review**

I struggled with this one. Here’s the thing… When you have one storyline that for half the book means every second chapter details someone doing nothing because they’ve been kidnapped and are in a pitch black room… every second chapter for half the book is very similar. At times it felt like copy paste and I had to try not to skim in case there was information I needed.

I also find the “helpless trapped girl” trope to be a little frustrating and over played. The storyline was just also not feasible. There is 0 chance that any of the storyline would happen aka the ‘cover up’ of the murders.

This one was sadly a miss for me but I would rec it for fans of domestic thrillers or for those that don’t read too many thrillers and aren’t exhausted by the vulnerable female trope.

Amelie is a survivor. She lost both of her parents and was making a life for herself in London. She is helped early on by a kind woman who takes her in in her time of need. Amelie's friends work at the Exclusives magazine.

She meets Ned Hawthorpe, who is a billionaire and owner of Exclusives magazine. He offers her a job and takes her on a trip to Vegas where he makes her an offer, she cannot refuse but in order to accept the offer she had to marry him right then and there in Vegas.

Upon returning from their trip to Vegas reporters and the media are all over Ned's home asking questions and taking pictures. Ned cuts off Amelie's friends and will not let her have any contact with them. She is trapped in house with no way to contact anyone.

Shortly after they return home Amelie wakes up in a dark room. She realizes Ned is somewhere there as well, both kidnapped. As Amelie tries to navigate her new situation, she begins to realize what is happening.

There are many twists and turns. This was my first audio book and I really wish I would have read it instead. I also would have liked the author to go into the past of Amelie's friends and Ned so we could understand them better. Overall I really liked the book and maybe would have liked it better had I read it myself instead of the listening to the audio book.

This book started off as a five star read, which I expected having loved Behind Closed Doors. I was quickly hooked, loved the short chapters and thought the past/ present timelines built the perfect amount of suspense. However, once the second part hit, the book took a turn for the worse, and I completely lost interest. The execution of the plot was long and drawn out, there was little to no character development, I had zero emotional attachment to any characters and the story was totally unbelievable.

EDIT: I've just been informed my copy was missing 48 chapters!!!!! Hoping to edit this when the file gets fixed/when a finished copy is released!!


I feel like my audio copy of this book was missing something?

Was this a completed book????? It ended so abruptly. I am super confused.

The summary also mentioned a character named Jed and in the audiobook his name is Ned.

Overall, I'm giving this book a huge WHAT??? rating because I feel like it's missing a lot. I love BA Paris' style of writing and the bones of this story were great. I just think I didn't get a full copy to review.

2 stars for now. Hoping it's a fluke and I can read the finished book when it comes out!

I was made aware that the audio I listened to was missing chapters - 48 chapters allegedly. I’ll have to circle back sometime and give it another listen. Unfortunately what I was given for the audio did not spark joy but hopefully that’s because of the missing information.

Amelie has her sight set on becoming a lawyer and seeking justice for those wronged. She has lived a very rough life, her parents have died and she really only has her own self. After finding a job in London she is finally settling into her life and pursuing her dreams. Suddenly, Amelie makes a choice to help her future, but the risk was too great and she finds herself kidnapped and help prisoner.
Told between two timelines, her current state of being a prisoner and the events that led up to it, this is a fast paced book. I did feel some of the character development could have been better. Other than Amelie, we didn’t get to know the other characters very well.
Overall this was a good and fast pasted read.
** Huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Amelie has had a difficult childhood. She lost her parents as a child and made her way to London and survived. She is taken is a housekeeper, but eventually makes her way with a new company. Jed is the owner of the magazine she works for and he strikes up a strange deal with her. She marries billionaire Jed Hawthorne. She quickly learns he is not whom she thinks he is. Get ready for a psychological thriller that will keep you glued to the pages.
This book goes between past and present. One day she wakes up in a pitch-black room. Where is she? Who are her captures? She feels safe for some reason! Could it be someone she knows? Is her husband behind this? The book also explores her release and getting revenge on her captures.
Love this author’s style. This was my first book by her and I look forward to more.