Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press for the eARC of The Prisoner! I will always covet the chance to read an upcoming B.A. Paris book, especially when it follows something strong like last year’s release, The Therapist.
Unfortunately, The Prisoner mostly missed the mark for me and I don’t find it to be one of her stronger books.
Bookish Quick Facts:
- Title: The Prisoner
- Series: N/A
- Author: B.A. Paris
- Publisher & Release: St Martin’s Press, 11/01/22
- Length: 304 pages
- Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐ (Sorry – yes to fans of the author & genre though)
Here’s the synopsis:
With Behind Closed Doors, New York Times bestselling author B. A. Paris took the psychological thriller to shocking new heights. Now she’ll hold you captive with THE PRISONER―a stunning new thriller about one woman wed into a family with deadly intentions.
Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne.
But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Ned?
My thoughts:
The plot itself sounds interesting enough, a husband and wife are kidnapped and we have to learn why, then how it unfurls, and then what happens afterward. I’m always down for a psychological or domestic thriller with these plots.
The issue is that in order for these kinds of books to be interesting or terrifying, they have to be if not real, at least believable. Even the believable parts in this one weren’t believable. Those older women wouldn’t just invite 18 year old Amelie into their lives so quickly, and Ned doing the things that Ned does, even the twists at the end involving Amelie’s money, none of it really worked for me. It just all felt very cartoon like and more eye rolls happened than they should have.
And the end didn’t work – yeah yeah yeah Amelie wants to straightaway get involved with another very dangerous accessory to murder No. It was just too easy to wrap everything up with that super long conversation at the end.
Also the entire book was repetitive. It had short chapters that are good for flipping pages quickly, but for something so short it seems like it should have moved forward more than sideways sometimes. The other issue is that unless we were told, it was hard to keep track of how much time was passing overall. Four years from start to finish, how did that even happen? I think dates would have helped this one a lot for the segments taking place in the past.
I finished the book rather quickly despite everything, so that’s something. For the four Paris novels I’ve read now: I loved Behind Closed Doors, liked The Therapist, kind of sort of tolerated Bring Me Back, but The Prisoner to me is the worst of the bunch. Sorry, I just know BA Paris can do better!
Thanks for checking out my book review of The Prisoner! As always, I endlessly thank St. Martin’s Press for being a wonderful partner and providing me with so many amazing free books to review! All honest opinions are my own
OneReadingNurse.com 