The Guest by B.A. Paris was different from her previous books. The first half of the book is a very slow burn, but it pays off later.
Established fans will enjoy a classic B.A. Paris ending with a reveal in the same style we've come to love. You won't see it coming.

Many thanks to the author for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book started out slow, I admit, but did get much better as I kept reading. Three murders later, and in the epilogue, a very unexpected killer admits her secrets. Thank you for approving me to read this book!

The Guest, B.A. Paris
I've read all of B.A. Paris' books. She's an automatic read for me and she never, ever disappoints! I was THRILLED when an advanced copy of her upcoming book landed in my inbox!
I LOVED this book and devoured it in a just a few days!
Iris and Gabriel are happily married, living a great life in a European suburb. One morning when Gabriel was out running, he found Charles, a young kid, on the side of the road, only to die soon after, saying his final words to Gabriel. Gabriel is shattered by this, causuing his job as a surgeon to suffer, as well as his relationship with Iris.
Around this same time, Laure, the wife of their good friend, comes to stay with them because she's having problems with her husband Pierre. Laure makes herself at home, disregarding everyone around her, personal space, and basically refusing to leave.
Another couple, Esme and Hugh move into the house down the road and both Iris and Gabriel are thrilled to be making some new friends.
But of course, nothing is ever as good as it seems and things begin to go down very quickly!!!
I trusted NO ONE throughout this entire book. I felt all of them had something to hide and were up to something! It kept me guessing the entire time, trying to piece it all together and figure it out!!
A great thriller, for sure!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5

3 marriages are explored in this domestic thriller with unreliable characters. Iris/Gabriel the couple who is struggling after Gabriel falls into a depression after witnessing an unfortunate accident. Laure/Pierre the couple tested by a secret that comes to light and Esme/Hugh the new couple to the neighborhood.

Laure arrives unexpectedly after learning a secret as a guest in iris’s home. She’s a guest that overstays her welcome. Iris feels overwhelmed and a bit resentful at the intrusion but finds some relief after encountering and befriending the new neighbors. Their mysterious gardener joseph plays an integral role in the 3 relationships.

Characters are well developed, plot moves slowly. However, it entices the reader to continue to figure out what exactly ties all of these relationships together. Learning the how and why is satisfying although the journey to the discovery is meandering and for this reason alone I took off a star.

B.A Paris never disappoints.

I've read other B.A Paris books and loved them, so I was very excited to get this Arc! This book was extremely slow and hard to get into. 50% of the way through it picked up for a little bit until it slowed down again. The epilogue basically retold the story explaining the true events. It was just okay.

The Guest by B.A. Paris did not disappoint! I swear, I’ve had a friend similar to Laure! This book had me wanting to forget about all of my daily responsibilities and just block the world out so I could read. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this book and I cannot wait to recommend it on my socials and to my book clubs!

I'll read anything by BA Paris--Behind Closed Doors remains, to this day, one of the most fabulously disturbing books I may have ever read. So when she comes out with something new, I'm in.

The Guest is Laure, a dear friend of Iris and Gabriel, who is staying in their house--uninvited. Laure has walked out on her husband Pierre for valid reasons, but is refusing to speak with him or letting Iris and Gabriel speak with him. It's all very odd and it's very frustrating for Iris, who is sharing her clothes, rearranging furniture and the kitchen, and just.won't.leave. And Gabriel is struggling with guilt after being the person with a boy who died in a freak accident.

Thankfully, a new couple moves in down the street and Iris and Gabriel are drawn to them and their gardener. But everyone seems to be hiding something: Laure, Pierre, Iris, Gabriel, Esme, Hugh, Joseph the gardener, and even Beth, Iris and Gabriel's daughter. And the reader senses something running through it all, a catastrophe just waiting to happen.

This book is good. It's tight, thrilling, and while it seems like a large cast, they're all different enough to keep track of. The payoff is good--the reader is along for the actions and repercussions and the last chapter ties it all together in a way that makes you want to start reading the book all over again. Another excellent book by BA Paris. Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC of The Guest in exchange for my honest review!

The Guest was such a mediocre slog to get through. It's strange, because it's not like this was boring me necessarily. No, it did engage me enough to keep flipping the pages. But at the same time, I never got all that deeply invested in the plot or the characters. They all radiated the sort of mystery and thriller cliches I've consumed countless times already, so it left me feeling quite tepid as I progressed through the book and contended with how devoid it is of genuine suspense.

Then I hit the twist ending, and that's when I wanted to put the book down right then and there. Hampered by the lack of effective setup beforehand, this conclusion just made me roll my eyes and is going down as one of the more irritating endings I've read in a thriller recently. And I must say, I also wasn't much more satisfied with the other two B.A. Paris books I'd read, The Therapist and The Prisoner. So I suppose this means I won't be consuming any more of her work.

Overall, I'm officially rating The Guest 1.5 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding up to 2 stars. There's a point where I considered rounding that down to 1 star, but I'm deciding to be a little generous here. I've definitely read worse books, after all.

Overall, this was a solid B.A. Paris domestic suspense novel! Iris and Gabriel return home from holiday to find their friend Laure in their home. She's been there a few days, and asked to stay while she sorts out her marriage. Her husband, Pierre, has just dropped the bombshell that he has a daughter out there by another woman and he wants to be in the child's life. The two couples have been friends for over 20 years after meeting on holiday during Pierre and Laure's honeymoon, so Iris and Gabriel feel caught in the middle. Iris tries to comfort Laure while Gabriel tries to handle his own grief after being the person to hear a young boy's last words after an accident, and be a supportive friend to Pierre. But Pierre is ignoring his messages, he refuses to talk to Laure.

Meanwhile, Iris has met their new neighbors down the way--Esme, who is very pregnant, and Hugh, her much older husband. As they strike up a friendship that also includes Gabriel and Laure, Iris gets suspicious that something is wrong. Gabriel is pulling away from her and she doesn't understand why. Laure is staying with the couple indefinitely and attempting to find out who the mystery child is. Iris isn't convinced that Hugh is the father of Esme's child, but rather that it's their gardener Joseph, who has also been helping Gabriel with some of their own landscaping. Everyone seems to be hiding something, but who has the most dangerous secrets? And what will they do to keep them?

Overall, I enjoyed the book! The pacing felt a little off compared to other Paris novels--the first 60% of the novel felt like backstory and set up, and most of the conflict and resolution occurred in the last 2-3 chapters and epilogue. The plot twists were well done, but I did wish there had been another one regarding what happened with the boy who died in the accident. The narrators are unreliable, the characters generally well developed, and the story was more interesting than I expected it to be after the first few pages. If you're a fan of B.A. Paris or domestic suspense novels, you'll probably enjoy this one.

Oh my! You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t! 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars! I’ve always enjoyed B.A. Paris novels in the past, so I was excited to get an advanced digital copy of The Guest. I loved the drama, the intrusive guest, the secrets … there’s always something more we don’t know about. And every person/couple/family has issues and oddities which had me continuously seeking their true stories. There are struggling marital relationships, good friends, handsome but troubled yard help, forbidden attraction, and some great and shocking twists - especially at the end. I recommend this if you enjoy a slow to moderately paced psychological thriller with some big surprises. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

First off! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. I am a true B.A. Paris fan and this book did not disappoint. Such an unreliable narrator. The twists through out and oh my gosh that epilogue. I didn’t guess the ending. This was a great psychological thriller! Loved!

Iris and Gabriel return home from a trip away to find their friend Laure staying in their house. She left her apartment in Paris after discovering her husband had a child with another woman. As the weeks continue and she hasn’t left their house and is starting to take over their lives, the couple grows exasperated. Then, the secrets start to mount in this tiny English village that already had one mysterious death with a relationship to this house.

I loved B.A. Paris’s work in the past, especially Behind Closed Doors. This was a bit of a miss for me, but perhaps it wouldn’t have been so much so if I hadn’t known what talent B.A. Paris displayed in other books. Instead of heightened tensioned, I felt a lot of annoyance. Much of the book was repetitive. It felt like for the first half of the book, every day was the same: someone wakes up, goes for a run, bathes, sits in the garden, gets upset, eats dinner, goes to bed. Other than the revolving reasons for being upset, these actions are described every single day, and it becomes dull quickly. There’s only so many baths and showers I want to read about, plus the quotidian details of what someone is wearing or choosing to eat. There was just too much minutiae until we started getting to the mystery of the story. Then there were too many threads that seemed to tie up a little too completely and coincidentally all at once in the epilogue.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this advanced copy of the manuscript.

The Guest
B.A. Paris
☆☆☆☆☆
February 20th, 2024

This book was stunning. The story was weaved wonderfully and in a truly captivating way. I love how it unfolded, and I was unable to predict where this book was taking me. An absolutely wonderful thriller that I could not put down! I would buy a physical copy for my shelf, and will definitely recommend it to others!

This was my first book by BA Paris and it started off slower than I thought it would based on her other books’ reviews. However, I really enjoyed that it was a slow burn… I loved the writing style and how each of the characters really felt fleshed out, and I loved how everything was tied together in the epilogue. Overall, I was really pleased by the book and it made me add several of her previous works to my TBR list.

A big thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

This was a solid read! It kept me engaged and I couldn’t stop turning pages because I just wanted everything to come together! The twist was great and unexpected. I can’t wait to recommend this one when it releases.

I was excited to read this BA. Paris novel. since I thoroughly enjoy the first one I read. Unfortunately this was not my favorite. I prefer page turners and quick reads while this book was an extremely slow burn. At 50% of the way the plot was still being developed. I was about to put this book down but since its my first ARC I felt I had to finish it.. Never quit lol. Eventually the book did pick up and the VERY long epilogue tied up all plot twists very nicely. Overall I give this book a 3.5. Its a good story however could have been at least 100 pages shorter. The first part of this book should cut by half (at least) and the epilogue should be chapters in the book

This was my first BA Paris novel and I have heard so many good things about her books that I wanted to love it. It took me a long time to get into the book. The first half of the book was a bit of a chore without much happening. The last half of the book picked up and the epilogue redeemed the whole thing. If you prefer fast-paced books then this won’t be for you, but if you like a slow burn with a twist you never saw coming then definitely pick this one up. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I didn't know what to expect from this book. I have read all of this author's books and to me, they are hit or miss. This one, however, was a hit! It took a little for the story to get going, but once it did, I was hooked and read it in two sittings. The epilogue wasn't a shocking twist, but it made all the pages before it totally worth it! If you're looking for suspense, here it is. 4 - 4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC
B.A. Paris is one of my go to authors. However, I will admit I found this book a little bit slow at the beginning, however STICK with it, as it will blow your mind.

So many twists I did not see coming and after I was about 50-60% in I had to sit and read it until I was finished.

Definitely another great B.A, Paris book and 4 stars!

I would give this book 3.5 stars if possible. Most of the book was slow. It was hard for me to stay interested. Only until I got about 50% of the way through did I feel like something was going on. The ending tied everything nicely though but also was super hard to believe. The twist was interesting and I enjoyed the ending the most!