This book was fantastic! Imagine coming home from vacations to find a friend has been staying in your house--and she won't leave! The friend is going through a rough patch in her marriage, which is creating chaos around you. The Guest is gripping from start to finish. I highly recommend this!

I loved Behind Closed Dore, so I expected a lot from this one !
The guest is about a group of friends. iris and Gabriel, Laure and Pierre.
Iris and Gabriel came back from vacation and found Laure at their home, she left Pierre because he confessed her a secret. Soon, nobody is able to talk to Pierre, and Laure is always at their house definitely moving in and becoming friend with their new friends !
A secret can hide another one and everything makes sens after.
I still don’t know if I loved or hated this book ! He leaves me with a lot of uncertainty about life and friendship. Do we really know our friends ? Our family ? Can we trust them no matter what ?

Thank you Net Galley for the book! it was enjoyable at the beginning but a little too long winded for my taste. The twist ending is definitely surprising though!

The character development in this book was great. So many secrets. Looking forward to reading more books by B.A. Paris

This was a really great book! It had a lot of twists and turns that I wasn't expecting. This is the second book I've read from this author, and both times the ending was fantastic! I definitely recommend, and can't wait to read more from this author.

I was prepared to love The Guest since Behind Closed Doors was one of my favorite books. While I ended up liking the book okay, it just took an unbelievable long time for the story to be told. None of the characters were particularly likable, but the ending had a good twist.

I think I'm entering my thriller slump era.

I LOVED Paris' Behind Closed Doors and the rest of her books have really paled in comparison, but this one is an improvement over her last few which ranged from incredibly forgettable to "ok?" When I finished, this one seemed to remind me a bit of the author who wrote Behind Closed Doors so much so that I wondered if, on a reread, I'd love BCD as much as I did on my first read.

This is a short thriller, that feels lengthy. When I say nothing happens the first 40% of the book, I mean nothing. In the end there was 1 twist that I did find myself surprised by, but I think it was more-so because I didn't necessarily care about that particular mystery. The big mystery was incredibly predictable and this novel ends with one of my least favorite tropes in mystery/thrillers ("Wanna know how I did it? Let me tell you!").

This novel seems to be another example of "it was very fine." Did it do anything inherently wrong? Not really. Was it groundbreaking for the genre? No. Was it incredibly shocking? No. Did I enjoy my time reading? I mean I wasn't miserable reading it.

This is a good weekend read for the winter when the weather is crappy and you're forced to stay inside the whole weekend. You can knock it out fairly quickly, enjoy your time reading it for the most part, and then move on not having read that something that was either great or terrible.

My appreciation goes out to St. Martin's Press via NetGalley for supplying me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wordy! That's how I would describe this book. Over explained descriptions of mundane actions.
Despite being overtly slow paced, I enjoyed the twists through out the book. I wondered how the 3 main conflicts would all relate to each other.
Tho I wasn't expecting the final twist, the epilogue, all of a sudden told in first person, just kind of tied up all the loose ends. It almost felt rushed to finish the book and explain everything.
Would definitely be an enjoyable Lifetime movie!
Thank you, Netgalley, publisher, and author for the ARC.

Quick psychological thriller; dual POVs in third person; secrets & betrayals; suspenseful - don't know who to trust; a lot of moving parts that come together slowly but too slowly; the epilogue that provided the twist was great but the story was so drawn out that by the time I made it to the final twist, it didn't have a lot of impact; repetitive, w/unnecessary details; frustrating characters; dialogue felt choppy & unnatural

Special thank you to St. Martin’s Press & NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Releases 2/20/24!

I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC of The Guest by B.A. Paris. This was a slow read I thought for the most part. There were a lot of characters to keep up with. I do have to say, the twists and secrets, especially towards the end, I did not see them coming! If you think the book starts off slow, keep reading! I would recommend if you like slow paced, domestic dramas! 😊

I literally couldn’t put this book down from the moment I picked it up. This author is legit one of my favorites. Such page turners always and this one did not disappoint. A best friend goes through a situation and needs to move in with her best friend and her husband. Honestly so many twists and turns. What I thought was going on wasn’t even close. Highly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was so excited to receive an arc for this book, but this was a snooze-fest. I have read a lot from this author, and I feel like I’m just chasing that “Behind Closed Doors” feeling. The characters bored me, the plot bored me, and I almost DNF’d. I literally did not care what was happening or going to happen. The “twist” was weird. The epilogue was weirder. I’m sad.

This book was so good! I can’t get over the epilogue! There were a lot of characters but everything tied together so well. I really loved this one.

OMG what a ride and what a twist. Again BA Paris has written a book so well crafted I just could not put it down. The story revolves around 3 couples and their secrets, but you never guess them. I love the character development and the way she slowly revealed each part of a secret and then the epilogue was totally unexpected. This author can truly do no wrong in my mind.

I loved that this was different than some other domestic thrillers in that it varied in each chapter from the point of view of the wife (Iris) and the husband (Gabriel). Initially it was just Gabriel’s secret white lie that was the focus, but as other characters are introduced you learn bits about them, including the long time friends, Pierre and Laure and the new friends Hugh and Esme. Then add in Joseph the gardener that Esme and Hugh are helping after he had a drinking problem and there are so many secrets. You keep guessing how they may all be connected. She does an amazing job slowly connecting the stories, but not giving away everything until the end which was a shock.

B.A. Paris is never disappoints! Her latest novel The Guest is a domestic thriller that had me guessing the entire way through! Centering around a couple who unexpectedly hosts a friend while she goes through martial issues. Well she ends up being the houseguest that doesn’t plan on leaving! From that point I was completely hooked and couldn’t wait to see how this would all play out!! Spoiler alert - I never figured it out lol! I thought B.A. Paris was clever in planting her twists and turns and loved the fact that my jaw hung wide open at one particular part!! I also enjoy getting lost in B.A. Paris’ novels and The Guest most definitely lived up to my expectations!!

Loved this book - so many twists and turns, with unreliable characters and everyone with a secret. Couldn't put it down and will be recommending it to others.

3.25/5 ⭐️

This is going to be a weird review for me because I’m not 10000% sure how I feel about this book. Maybe if I let it sit for a week & think more about it, I’ll be able to understand my thoughts better, but here are the immediate things:

The characters were all frustrating and had their Ickes that made the story both great but also drawn out. I didn’t like the majority of them and there was a lot of back and fourth in the dialogue that could often feel repetitive.

Sometimes I felt like from one chapter to the next, things happened behind the scenes that weren’t explained and that I was missing something? Like it hopped from one thing to the next but with no explanation to how it got there (which ultimately made so much sense for the ending but during I was like 😅). What’s confusing here is that this point actually ends up being a positive and is a reason you’ll never figure out the twist (it’s pretty genius if you let it sit).

Loved the ending! The twist was fantastic even though it was sped through. Everything was explained so no questions were left unanswered.

I’d still recommend this one!
Read if you love
- a slow burn
- Wicked twist
- Intertwining stories

The Guest is a slow burn thriller filled with secrets and lies. Although the story was very slow to begin, I kept finding myself wondering about the characters and kept coming back to continue reading this book.. Laure was insufferable - I felt like I was being suffocated in my own home. B.A. Paris did an amazing job and drew you into these messy characters and their intertwined lives. There were so many twists in this book that upon reaching the epilogue, I felt so thrown off. The epilogue was *chef’s kiss” A solid 4 stars for this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Did you ever have a houseguest who stayed much longer than you wanted? One who took advantage of your hospitality, invaded your privacy, created problems, and was nearly impossible to get rid of?

I have, and it was very stressful! That experience is why I wanted to read this book. Fortunately, my life didn’t go nearly as off the rails as it did for the poor characters in this novel.

Iris and Gabriel’s friend Laure shows up unexpectedly and asks to stay for a few weeks. She’s had a terrible fight with her husband, Pierre. Iris and Gabriel have had recent problems in their marriage, and Laure’s intrusion adds to the tension. A new family in the neighborhood befriends them, and soon everyone becomes enmeshed in unhealthy ways and starts lying to each other and keeping secrets.

I really liked all the drama in this book. I read it late into the night because I wanted to know what happened next. The plot kept surprising me and the epilogue was clever and impressive.

Much of the dialogue was repetitive and unnecessary. For instance, many phone conversations were written out word for word, including small talk which could have been summarized for brevity. The inclusion of mundane details and minutiae about the characters’ daily schedules bogged the book down in some chapters.

I do recommend this book if you are looking for an entertaining read with a good storyline.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Press for sending this eGalley book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I feel like I give every BA Paris book a chance, because I once was enamored with this author’s twisty thrillers.

Recently, the books have been hit or miss. This book reminded me quite a bit of the “garden party” BA Paris book. Lonnnnng, slow burns with little to no pay off. In this book, specifically, the twist at the end was incongruous with the rest of the text.

This was a definite no from me.

Special thanks to Net Galley for the arc copy-I wanted to like this book so much!