Bring Me Back (Book Review) by B.A. Paris

I was lucky enough to receive a box of summer paperback releases from St. Martin’s press, and one of the books inside was Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris! I actually read this one back in May and feel like I owe the book a little more love than I originally gave it!

Bookish Quick Facts:

• Title: Bring Me Back
• Series: N/A
• Author: B.A. Paris
• Publisher & Release: St. Martin’s Press, June 2018 (Rereleased by St Martin’s Paperbacks March, 2021)
• Length: 352 pages
• Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟 yes for fans of quick paced thrillers… But not those who are professional thriller readers

Here is the synopsis off Amazon:

She went missing. He moved on. A whole world of secrets remained―until now.

Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone―never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him…even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla―hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive―and on Finn’s trail―what does she want? And how much does she know?

A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

I’m going to start with the bad, then move to the good with this review! So the reason that I don’t recommend for “professional” thriller readers is that a TON of reviewers are saying that they guessed the ending, it was ridiculous, not suspenseful at all, etc… and I can kind of see that.

It is a slow burn at first, with a lot of romantic backstory and not much happening. I am someone who can never guess the twist, and even though it was more of a slower suspense novel with the thriller part coming towards the end, I did 100% not see the twist coming.  Am I stupid? I don’t know. I had a bit of trouble staying engaged with the book at first, before it got interesting.  It has the short chapters that are easy to flip through quickly though, then first alternates between “now” and “before”, then between Finn and Layla

I liked the part about the Russian Dolls, although it seemed overused.  I also did like how totally, absolutely ludicrous the ending was… I didn’t think it was believable, but it was definitely crazy.  I didn’t say I liked the ending/twist itself, just again how out in left field it was 😂

I didn’t love the characters either, but that’s pretty normal in a suspense/thriller.  It’s always the husband, right? Hmmm.  The characters were better on audio, the narrators did a LOT for their personalities.

I listened to some of the book on audio and fully enjoyed listening to Kevin Hely and Cathleen McCarron.  They both made their characters sound like total psychopaths. The audiobook is about 8 hours long and was released through Macmillan Audio at time of the book’s original release.

Stable people don’t go around leaving little Russian dolls for others to find

B.A. Paris, Bring Me Back

Overall, yeah I would recommend for anyone looking for a quick, easy to read summer suspense novel.  I hear a lot about B.A. Paris’ novel Behind Closed Doors as well, so I am interested in that which is widely called a stronger read

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Meet the Author (from Amazon)

B A Paris is the internationally bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors, The Breakdown, Bring Me Back and The Dilemma. Having sold over one million copies in the UK alone, she is a New York Times bestseller as well as Sunday Times bestseller and a number one bestseller on Amazon and iBooks. Her books have been translated into 40 languages. Having lived in France for many years, she and her husband recently moved back to the UK.

Her fifth novel, The Therapist is out in **July, 2021**

-Amazon description. Release date edited