Are you sitting comfortably? Well, you won’t be for long! Not when you start to read this book...........! But let’s start with the blurb shall we?
When Alice and Leo move into a newly renovated house in The Circle, a gated community of exclusive houses, it is everything they’ve dreamed of. But appearances can be deceptive....
As Alice is getting to know her neighbours, she discovers a devastating, grisly secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before.
Alice becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened two years before. But no one wants to talk about it. Her neighbours are keeping secrets and things are not as perfect as they seem....’
What is it about a good psychological thriller, eh? It’s like a tub of Pringles. Once you start you just can’t stop! It’s like a literary vortex that sucks a reader out of oblivion and into this maelstrom of intrigue, twists and turns, secrets and deceits until your head is spinning with the speed at which you’re trying to read, to find out just what the hell is going on! Oh, but that’s only if it’s a good one. If it’s not it’s as big a disappointment as finding out that someone’s eaten all the green triangles from a tub of Quality Street. I know what you’re going to ask me now. You’re going to ask me if this is a good one aren’t you? OH MY GOODNESS, YES! YES! YES! What? You don’t believe me? Go ahead and read it. See for yourself.
I’m going to throw my hands up now and admit this is the first B A Paris book I’ve read. It’s all my loss. If her back catalogue is anything like this then my TBR pile is going to be very one-sided. I loved it. I couldn’t put it down. I suspected everybody including Alice herself. Whoops! Is that a spoiler? I hope not. But no matter. I don’t think anything could spoil this book.
It’s very clever. And without wishing to give anything away the book is as much about manipulating the reader into thinking a certain way as it is about the story itself. That’s another of the aspects of psychological thrillers that I love. The way the writer is trying to get you to think one way and sometimes you just go willingly, without realising it. Sometimes there’s a bit of rebellion, a bit of resistance as you say no, no, no, I’m not going to be fooled this time. Ha ha! but you often are. I also enjoy a psychological thriller that isn’t edge of the seat action but subtle twists and turns that creates such a crescendo of unease that, in this case, you might find yourself requiring the services of a therapist afterwards!
Alice was a well-defined character and we enjoy all proceedings from her perspective. We feel her deflation at the betrayals and the snubs. We feel her elation as she seem to make progress in her investigation. We are engaged and we are rooting for her. We want her to seek out the truth. But we also want to warn her when we can see danger. And although the danger might not have been obvious from the start once you realise you just want to protect Alice. The other characters present themselves as if they’re tokens on a Cluedo board. They seem to materialise at salient moments. Or, conversely, they are conspicuous by their absence at others. And we scrutinise them as Alice does to see if we can somehow find the truth.
It’s a capable and professional piece of work. It’s what you would expect from an experienced writer. Somebody who knows their craft inside out and - understands their readers. As a reader I keep reaching the stage where I think the psychological thriller has had its day. Are there any more plots and scenarios that can in any way engage today’s discerning reader? And then along comes a book like this that has you feverishly turning the pages and you know the genre is alive and well.
My thanks to HQ stories for my gifted copy and the icing on the cake was a personal dedication inside from the author. My cup overflows.
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