Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
The Guest is the next book from the great thriller author B.A. Paris. It is about Iris and Gabriel who come home from vacation to find their best friend Laure in their home waiting for them. Laure has taken refuge in their home after finding out that her husband had an affair and has a child from the affair.
I usually love B.A. Paris' novels but this one did not keep my attention. I was so excited to get an arc from one of my favorite authors and it pains me that I did not enjoy this novel. This book was just not suspenseful to me at all which is a necessary part of mystery thriller novels. Even domestic thrillers should have me thinking and questioning. I felt like this book was just a few basic mysteries in a row with no seeds of questioning the answers that we were given. <spoiler>The end of this novel just felt like a massive info dumb. The twist was good but the way it was delivered was just miserable.</spoiler>
When it came to the characters I did not feel connected to any of them. The deaths felt like they had no meaning because the author leads you to not like anyone by the time they die. The high school student who died (not a spoiler because it is talked about right at the start) is the only sad death but we know nothing about him so there is no connection. It was disappointing by the end to learn everything all at once. It felt like the author forgot she was supposed to make a suspenseful twist and threw something in at the end. The 'seeds' throughout the book just felt liked they were thrown in and were so unnecessary.
If you want a good thriller I would recommend other B.A. Paris' novels, like Behind Closed Doors. I would suggest to skip this one unfortunately.

ARC REVIEW

The Guest
By B.A. Paris

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Publishing date: 2/20/2024

REVIEW:
Ok. The twist? I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING. Like...at all. I actually went, "OHHHHHHHH WHAAAAAT!" When I made the connection. I'll give credit that I think the twist was done VERY well.

However, NOTHING.... And I mean NOTHING is revealed until....THE EPILOGUE.

As soon as I got to the epilogue, I was confused because there were NO answers given up until that point, but all was revealed in the epilogue.  But it took the entire book to get there , and I definitely lowered my rating because of this. It felt very slow and drawn out. The short chapters were nice to keep it moving, but the story felt long and unnecessary.

Honestly, I still recommend it because of the twist but prepared for no answers until the last possible second. 

Thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the arc! Always appreciative!

Laure comes to visit her good friends, Iris and Gabriel, and inserts herself into their lives. Laure has had trouble dealing with her husband, Pierre, who she believes has had an affair and fathered a child. How long will Laure avoid dealing with Pierre and continue to stay with Iris and Gabriel? What will happen with Laure and Pierre's relationship? In a second story, Gabriel is traumatized by a young man’s death message. Are these two stories related? If so, how? I am curious and read on.

During parts of this suspenseful domestic drama, the plot is slow-moving. I continue reading out of curiosity to find out what happens, but I feel worn out a little until reaching the conclusion. I am glad I stuck with this book until the end.

A weirdly structured mystery in which there doesn’t appear to be a mystery for 90% of the book and then the last 10% rips back the curtain to tell us what Really Happened. However, I felt the author cheated a bit by hiding things in and from the main narrative that turn out to be crucial, making the resolution seem undeserved.

When Iris and Gabriel return to their country home after a short break, they discover that their friend Laure has moved in after her husband revealed that he’d had a child with another woman.

The author does a great job of showing Iris’s growing irritation at their guest who apparently is never leaving, as well as the growing void between Iris and her husband, Gabriel. Gabriel, a doctor, was present at the death of a local boy who had had an accident on his bike in the local quarry and since then has been unable to connect with Iris.

Add into this mix, a new couple in the village - pregnant Esme and her much older husband Hugh - plus their Lady Chatterley’s Lover-esque gardener, Joseph, and it all looks ripe for a decent domestic thriller. But somehow the plot just doesn’t gel and the characters never really lift off the page.

I have enjoyed some of the author’s previous thrillers and, within the constraints of the genre, I find them usually quite original and interesting. This one just didn’t work for me but it was still pretty readable.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

This is the second book I’ve read from this author and while it was my favourite of the two I didn’t find it to be a bit slow and repetitive during the first half.
Filled with lots of twists and turns I found the premise very interesting and find that the author has a very readable writing style.

This one is hard to review. Although I like B.A. Paris, this is not one of my favourites. I think this will be an easy read for anyone but I just found it lacking. I feel like the synopsis of the book acted like there was more to the story then there actually was. Even when the twists came, it just felt meh to me.

If you like domestic thrillers then this might be more up your alley.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eARC!

This is my 2nd by author and although I preferred Behind Closed Doors, I did really enjoy this one as well.
Truly enjoy authors writing syle and found this to be one I didn’t want to put down.

Pacing a little slow at times and the mystery lacked a little excitement for me but overall a quick family drama mystery that I enjoyed.

I truly appreciate the opportunity for the advanced reader copy and look forward to reading more by author,

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I have read several BA Paris books and found this one to be quite slow in comparison to the others, There were several characters to follow and combined with the slow pacing- it just wasn’t my favorite. But in BA fashion- the ending had great twists! I encourage you to check it out next month. Thank you to NetGalley for the arc!

Just like all BA Paris novels I’ve read I didn’t see the twist coming! I was lulled into thinking I had it all figured out just to have the carpet ripped out from me! Incredible! A must read for thriller fans!

Unfortunately this book did not grab my attention.. I did not finish it. The characters are not engaging enough. The plot seems to be going in multiple directions.

I cannot believe I am having to write this review as I am such a big fan of so many of this Authors books, but here is my honest review.
I have read quite a few of B.A.Paris’ books, but this was by far my absolute least favorite. This book tells the story of married couple Iris and Gabriel (the main characters) however there are soooo many other characters thrown in it was puzzling why , how, who thought these characters and this story worked cohesively because to me it was absolutely ridiculous. Iris and Gabriel are struggling from a tragic event Gabriel went through. When his secret came out, insert eye roll. Then their friends Laure and Pierre were having marriage issues due to another secret… insert bigger eye roll when that was revealed. I absolutely struggled to get into this book, connect or like any of the characters, or want to keep reading.
Overall this was a huge miss for me and to be honest I could have skipped 80% of the book, just read the epilogue, and had all the answers I needed and not struggled through reading the book.
I will say I am still a huge fan of this author and will continue to read each book.


Thank you to the Author, Netgalley, and St.Martins press for the ARC!

Some secrets never leave.

Iris and Gabriel seem to have it all: a beautiful home in the British countryside, a daughter happily working in Greece, and good friends Laure and Pierre from Paris, who they often vacation with. But when a young man has a tragic accident in a nearby quarry, Gabriel is the one to find him and hear his final words, leaving Gabriel with a guilty burden.

A slow burn that took me a bit to get into. There are a lot of characters and everyone has their own drama (maybe too many characters, too much drama?). After a few weeks of Laure staying with Iris and Gabriel even I had had enough of her! Then things start to get mysterious and the story speeds up when Laure finally makes the trip back home to try to patch things up with Pierre. A dark twist at the end that left me surprised!

BA Paris books are always a bit on the wild side. This one was not quite as fast paced as the others. It’s a slowwww burn from start to finish. I really wasn’t taken aback by the twist and nothing really happened or was explained until the epilogue. The characters were all boring and unlikable. I’m still unsure of Charlie’s purpose…? The summary on GoodReads doesn’t even really make sense.

Read if you like:
🔪 a slow burn snoozy thriller
🔪 secrets, secrets and more secrets!
🔪 going on vacation with other couples

The Guest in the latest from B.A. Paris due out February 20 is Laure, a long-time friend of Iris and Gabriel, who has left her husband Pierre in France having learned he has fathered a child by another woman. Welcome at first, Laure is soon trying her friends’ patience as all she talks about is Pierre, and she is making no plans to leave their British countryside home and return to Paris.

Gabriel is already stressed having left his medical practice suffering from burnout and trauma as his father has just died, his dog followed suit, and Gabriel could not save a young man named Charlie who Gabriel encountered on his daily run. Charlie had crashed his bike at the nearby quarry, and his last words before dying weigh heavily on Gabriel. Added to his burden is the guest who will not go home after weeks and weeks of staying with Gabriel and Iris. As Benjamin Franklin once said, ““Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”

Having left Paris with nothing, Laure continues to borrow Iris’ clothes rather than go shopping, follows Iris around like a lost puppy dog, and interferes with Iris’ interior decorating business. Worse, Laure quits her job in Paris with no plans for the future. Plus, Laure’s constant questions about Charlie’s death are unwelcome as Iris is doing everything she can to pull Gabriel out of his depression.

A new couple in the neighborhood brings some relief as they welcome Laure to visit. However, the downside is that Laure takes up with their gardener Joseph, a young man who was sacked from his previous gardening job at a school after becoming too friendly with a student, giving her his phone number and planning a trip to Thailand with her.

Before the thriller plays out, more characters will wind up dead, Pierre is indeed a father, and everything readers thought was true turns topsy-turvy thanks to an unreliable narrator.

B.A. Paris, known for her page-turning plots, does not disappoint with The Guest. The author of Behind Closed Doors, The Breakdown, Bring Me Back, and The Dilemma, she was a bank trader and teacher in France before turning to writing fiction. She lives with her husband in a cottage in Hampshire, England.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 6, 2024.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

As a fan of other B. A. Paris novels, I was excited to read The Guest. The story started slow and even felt repetitive at times, but kept my attention enough to continue going. I considered lots of possibilities as to what was going on “behind the scenes” but I didn’t see the twist coming. Overall, the book was a good, quick read to cleanse my palette. I wish I loved it as much as her others, but this one was just ok for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced read copy.

3.5 Stars

B.A. Paris is so good at writing about the slow deterioration of a relationship as events and secrets unfold. I love how she mixes family problems with suspense and thriller.

Iris and Gabriel are having one hell of a year. After Gabriel finds a dying boy in the quarry, their long-time friend, Laure, comes to stay with them, accusing her husband of fathering another woman’s child. She is fraught, needy, and blurring boundaries. While they reckon with that, their new neighbors move in and bring with them a gardener with a shady past. With both Iris and Gabriel carrying secrets and neither willing to lean on the other, what was once a solid relationship is now unraveling during a time when awful circumstances should be bringing them together.

I enjoyed the small twists that came throughout the whole book, never quite knowing who to trust. B.A. Paris once again warns us that we may not really know those we love.

I am docking half a star for the epilogue. I think it would have worked as a movie montage ending where it shows you the true twist and villain, but in a book it was longwinded (it’s 10% of the book) with some unnecessary explanations. I think it would have been more effective to have just been a paragraph or two with the reveal.

I enjoyed the guest very much! I’m glad I had the chance to read it early. BA Paris its quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. This book has a slightly different feel than the other books however it was still well rounded and extremely well planned out. My only complaint was the first half of the book was pretty slow and seemed repetitive I was able to speed read it with out missing anything important. Which can be a good or bad thing depending on the reader. But other than that it was definitely a good mystery/thriller and it definitely recommend it!

How to I begin to write this review. Well one word that would describe it is FANTASTIC! It’s definitely a page turner as I did not see that twist coming in the end…..wow!

BA Paris is my favorite author and her books are always intriguing till the end. I highly recommend everyone to read The Guest, it will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC of The Guest! Following the lives of Gabriel and Iris, their worlds are turned upside down when their friend Laure shows up out of the blue, needing a place to stay after her husband, Pierre, informs her that he has a child with another woman. Gabriel and Iris agree to let Laure stay at their home, but Laure quickly overstays her welcome.
Unfortunately, this book was not for me. The pacing of this book, I felt, was very slow up to the final chapters. Once the “twists and turns” start coming, they never stop, and it feels like a rushed ending for everything leading up to this point to reach a conclusion. I did enjoy the multiple point of views and Iris’s character development. Overall, I’m giving this book 2/5 stars.

This book was impossible for me to put down. it is a wonderfully written slow-burned that gets you from the beginning and it doesn't let you go. I loved the different POV's and the characters all had a little mystery in them that kept you wondering if there was more to them that meets the eyes. There is a lot to follow but please hold on because that ending was so worth it.
This is a must read so please add it to you TBR as soon as possible!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of "The Guest" by B.A. Paris in exchange for my honest review.