The Therapist (Book Review) by B.A. Paris

I am endlessly grateful to St. Martin’s Press for the finished hardcover of The Therapist by B.A. Paris! All opinions are my own!

I know I started this month strong with review content but I broke my brain with overtime and barely sleeping, and backed off on additional screen time for a bit. I posted this book to Instagram almost two weeks ago near it’s release date and I am catching up on full reviews now!

Bookish Quick Facts:

•  Title: The Therapist
• Author: B.A. Paris
• Release: St Martin’s Press, 7/13/21
• Length: 304 pages
• Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 for fans of psychological suspense!

Here is the book blurb:

The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B.A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in The Therapist―a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret.

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 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 neighbors are keeping secrets and things are not as perfect as they seem… 

So I read Bring Me Back recently by the same author, and The Therapist absolutely blew that book out of the water. Alice and Leo move into a wealthy gated community called The Circle, and soon enough Alice gets mixed up in a murder investigation. There are noises in the house at night, little strange things happening, and all the neighbors are suspects.

I really enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on, and how the killings were linked. I got the Who but not the How or Why, and still thoroughly enjoyed the journey to get there. There was also a little bonus twist of trying to figure out who the actual therapist was, and discovering Alice’s biggest, darkest secret.

The characters do play a huge role in this one too.  I didn’t dislike Alice but she isn’t the most likeable character, and she really could stand to see a therapist herself after the death of her sister.  Leo is Alice’s fiancee and seems to almost immediately start messing with her.  The neighbors are a clique already and you’ll just have to meet them as you read.

I docked one star for the he-said-she-said getting a bit repetitive, and I would have liked to see a little more of the psychology throughout the book.  There was some though, and what I really liked was the pervading sense of danger I felt for Alice once the book got going. This is generally a fast paced book that I can recommend for fans of psychological thrillers and suspense books. 

And the pages smelled excellent 😂