Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the free ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

Iris and Gabriel return home from a trip to discover their friend, Laure making herself comfortable in their home. Although Laure is overstaying her welcome, Iris and Gabriel feel too guilty to make her leave due to her recent discovery of her husband, Pierre, having a child with another woman. Throw in some overly welcoming neighbors and their mysterious gardener and we have a story about drama and secrets.

Thrillers are my favorite genre and usually I’m a fan of B.A. Paris’ books from the beginning but unfortunately The Guest didn’t captivate me until about 50% of the way through. The conversations and secrets between the characters felt a little repetitive and I struggled with the pacing. However, once the mysteries started unfolding, I didn’t want to put the book down. I was able to predict the secrets but not the details from the epilogue. Overall, I felt the ending was very well wrapped up. While this wasn’t my favorite book by this author, I will continue to pick up more of her future work. Get your copy of The Guest by B.A. Paris on February 20, 2024!

Excellent! Kept me guessing till the end. Very twisting and an unexpected ending. I love this author and B.A Paris never disappoints always takes me for a guessing game thrill ride..

Gabriel Iris, Laure, and Pierre have been friends for years, ever since they met while vacationing at the same beach. They're close enough to let each other use their homes when they're away. Gabriel and Iris come home from a vacation to find Laure in residence in their house with a wild story about her child free husband Pierre having fathered a child during their marriage.
 
I've not not loved BA Paris' last two novels (they were more written like a James Patterson novel), but this one was on the way to redeeming itself. The characters were well written, the story intriguing...and then you get to the abrupt ending of the book and LE GASP no twists have been revealed, no loose ends tied up. What the heck? There are multiple deaths, a paternity to determine, what the heck is going on with the new couple down the road? And that mysterious man who gardens? What's his deal? The boy who rode his bike over the quarry edge, why is he such a big part of the story? Is this...like The Breakdown, which wasn't a thriller (I, btw, loved The Breakdown so I wasn't opposed to the book not being a thriller, but there were soooo many loose ends).

Then.

You turn the page and oh, there's an epilogue!

Where all is revealed.

No thank you. It just felt...lazy to reveal all the twists at the very end in an epilogue. That one twist that never got tied up during the story? Cool, epilogue that. But literally EVERY TWIST? IN AN EPILOGUE? *rolls up newspaper* No, no, bad! Ugh, how many hands did this book go through that said "oh yes, this is great! People will love this!" No we won't. I hate it. I hate it so much. Where is BA Paris' early works careful crafting and manipulation, getting us to believe one thing while the exact opposite is true? Instead, it's all shoved into a ridiculous epilogue. Ugh, no thank you. No thank you at all.

While this book had a slow start, by the halfway mark the twists and turns were quite good and had me turning page after page to find out what the next twist would be.

The book starts off with us meeting Gabrielle and Iris; a married couple coming back from a holiday only to find their friend Laure staying in their home after receiving some devastating news from her husband. This is not unusual as Laure is one of their very best friends; however the length of stay is quite undetermined. Gabrielle has his own demons that he is struggling with and has taken a leave from his job to deal with this.

The characters are very well developed, and all have their own secrets, which is quite interesting.

You certainly can’t go wrong with a B.A. Paris book! Always a delight to read.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

This was a 3 star read for me. It fell flat in the suspense area and I was a little let down that everything came together in the epilogue. I also noticed some grammar/spelling issues. Incorrect use of the word their on page 251. And missing a name on page 260 “iris watched as ______ went to esme…

This is my first read from this author. I dug in knowing nothing about the novel itself. Maybe my expectations were high.
The title is a good choice. The story is plot driven. It is written through Iris's perspective. It begins with a bit of mystery that's intriguing.
Without giving any spoilers away, I wasn't pleased with character development. However, I understand why it was done this way. My least favorite part was at the end. I'd rather a mystery unfold instead of taking a whole section to explain what happened. It is sort of explaining a joke you just told. The explanation was a little far-fetched to me. I rate it 2.5 stars.
I'm glad I tried it and will try another by this author regardless of this novel alone.
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, i enjoyed this book. I felt it was a little slower paced than i would've liked but the pay off at the end was worth it. It was written nicely and kept my attention throughout. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I really hate to write this. I didn’t like The Guest. It started off annoying. The characters all cloying and obnoxious. Then it started in on the mysterious parts. Who was this Charlie and why had he died? Is there really a secret love child? Will marriages survive this? Is so and so sleeping with so and so? It piled on like that until it seemed more like a soap opera than a thriller/mystery.

I think I could have still been OK with that. But the mysteries themselves were so darn predictable. After reading the hour or so long epilogue that meant to tidy the whole thing up (what happened to “show not tell”?) there were no actual surprises. There was one part that I hadn’t already thought about but it wasn’t an important part of the story, in my mind and could have just been left out.

I will still read this author in the hopes that this was just one that wasn’t for me.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read an advance copy of The guest by B.A. Paris.
I always jump to read this author's books (ever since I read Bring me back). I usually can't put down her books, and am always shocked with her twisty endings. The guest just wasn't a hit for me. I found the beginning slow, and I knew the ending half way through the book. If I can figure out the twist at the end, it is obvious. Although I wasn't crazy about it, I still recommend this book for its plot and definitely recommend B.A. Paris.

4.5 ⭐️

i absolutely enjoyed reading this book. this is my first book of this author and it did not disappoint. 👏

the characters were all brilliantly written, and the way the story unfolded from start to finish was just perfect. and that twist? mind-blowing! i did NOT see it coming at all, my jaw was on the fr*aking floor. 🤯🤯

the ending was so satisfying, it made me want to applaud. 👏

why isn’t it a 5⭐️? there were too many characters it was difficult to keep track of all of them, but asides from that, it’s an incredible read. 🥳

The first thing I notice in this book is that I am immediately suspicious of this Laure character. I feel like there is something really off with her and her husband. Initially, I felt that the timing of Laure's situation was rushed. Though now that I've finished the entire book, I've found issues with the pacing of it all. I feel that we spent half the book of Laure and Pierre, too much time on Gabriel being depressed about Charlie and putting off his mother, Esme and Hugh seemed to only be a means to introducing Joseph to the story, and the second half of the book was like reading an entirely different novel altogether. The end came of out nowhere, and while I am a fan of unreliable narrators, it didn't seem to suit the story. This story fell a bit flat to me and it's unfortunate that we didn't even get the satisfaction of Gabriel and Iris healing their marriage in the end. I know this author is well liked and I definitely wanted to read to the end so I will probably read more from them as I am a huge fan of thrillers and I assume this one just wasn't for me. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

This book was pretty slow and boring overall. Nothing “exciting” really happened until the epilogue and even then, the twist was pretty lack luster and predictable in my opinion. I don’t think this is a book I would recommend to a friend.

3.75 stars.

The Guest is a domestic suspense read with a slow beginning and a large focus on the relationship between a wife and her husband. The mystery elements slowly started to unfold in the middle of the book and were quite interesting. However, the story seemingly abruptly ended with lots of loose ends. But then there was a lengthy epilogue where the twist was revealed. The actual reveal was good but that was the most exciting/engaging part of the story.

I think some of the epilogue could have been integrated into the main body of the novel and not saved for the epilogue which would have helped the uneven pacing and better immersed the reader. I also found it hard to engage with the characters.

This was a quick read with short chapters and I liked the ending but this was not my favourite by this author.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

I thought this was a rather slow-paced book and found the storyline dragged quite a bit. I didn’t really care for the characters. It turns out this book just wasn’t for me.

This was a very slow-burn, but definitely worth sticking around for the ending!●

Thank you, NetGalley @netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review

3.5 rounded up.

Bad habit of comparing all her books to my first by her, Behind Closed Doors, and this wasn’t that.

Not sorry I read it. Am i going to remember it years later, probably not. Did it keep me wanting to know more, yes! The prologue, kept running through my mind while reading, how were we going to get to that?!

Really enjoyed the characters, all likeable but with flaws. Storyline flowed well and easy to follow. Just didn’t knock it out of the park. Was tired of the reference to the quarry drowning but made sense later.

Each couple has an extra guest so which one was the title referring to?

Definitely didn’t see the ending coming and it gave me mixed feelings, like to easy or brilliantly written…..you decide.

Drama with some thrills, really more mystery.

Thanks to the author, netgalley and St martins press for my electronic advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was a great psychological thriller. Once I started it, I could not put it down.

As a reader I thought I had everything figured out and was accepting of which characters had committed the crimes. I loved the way the end completely threw me for a loop.

B.A. Paris weaves a complex and tangled web with her set of characters. Both the plot and the characters are much more complicated and problematic than they appear.

This was my first read by this author, but this one alone makes me want to seek out others by her. She truly proved to be a master of deception and deceit. Just like a good thriller should, this novel showed me that evil truly does lurk just under the surface.

Thank you, NetGalley and St, Martin's Press for the opportunity to review this ARC.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third book I've read by this author and I compare it all to Behind Closed Doors. I have a feeling nothing is going to top that book but I did enjoy this one a little bit more than her last one.

This one is a real slow burn but I didn't find it boring at all. I happened to really enjoy it. I did see one of the twists coming (one of the earlier twists) and I predicted it like right at the beginning of the book.

The epilogue was a complete and total surprise. I didn't see that coming at all. It made this book so much better.

3.5 stars rounded up

I love B.A. Paris' books. This one fell a little flat for me. It has a slow pace with non likeable characters. It ended and I was like, wait a minute who really did it? Luckily there is an epilogue that reveals all and it is a doozy. Without the reveal this was only stars for me. It got the extra star for the end. Regardless I do not want to ever go to this town and its quarry.

It took me awhile to get through this domestic thriller because the pacing was very slow. Iris and Gabriel have been married for over 20 years, but their relationship is in a rocky spot. Gabriel, a surgeon, has had a tough year losing his dog, his father, and witnessing a local teenage boy dying after a bike crash. The boy's last words have haunted him ever since. To make matters worse, when they get back from holiday, their friend Laure has made herself at home in their house. She's fresh off of leaving her husband, Pierre, who recently confessed to her that he discovered he has a daughter with another woman. Pierre is best friends with Gabriel, and Gabriel and Iris have doubts about Laure's outburst. Laure is also kind of the worst and is the house guest who will never leave, and constantly is by Iris's side. And then, there is a new couple in the neighborhood, who have a baby on the way and there own house guest. And then the murders happen. In spite of the slowness of the novel, the last 10% is very satisfying.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review.