The Therapist by B A Paris was yet another great book by this author. A gripping, page turner that made you keep reading for the conclusion. Kept me guessing to the very end.

Alice and Leo have just moved to The Circle, a gated exclusive community. It should be a dream but Alice soon find out their home has a dark past. As she looks into it she feels a strong connection with the previous occupant, a therapist called Nina. She starts to try to piece together what really happened but it soon becomes apparent secrets are been kept and life in The Circle isn't as perfect as it looks.

A solid thriller which would be really great if a) the protagonist wasn't daft as a brush and b) it didn't end so predictably. A decent enough read for the summer but not great.

I absolutely love the novels BA Paris writes. I’ve read them all.

The Therapist is another cracking psychological thriller. I’ve actually read it twice already it’s so good!

I had seen this book advertised everywhere so decided to give it a try. The red cover is eye-catching and would make me pick it up if I saw it in a shop.

Alice and Leo have moved into a lovely house in an exclusive, gated community in London, called The Circle. This reminded me of the TV programme 😂

Their relationship is seemingly perfect, but Alice discovers Leo has been hiding things from her and she’s not sure if she can trust him.
The previous resident of the house, Nina, a therapist, was murdered there, and Leo doesn’t tell Alice. When she finds out she’s very annoyed, and also becomes obsessive about the murder as the victim had the same name as her dead sister. She asks neighbours more about it and they all seem quite reluctant to discuss it.

The story is mostly told from Alice’s point of view, but there are occasional flashbacks told from the point of view of ‘the therapist’.

I didn’t really like Alice’s character very much and found she made some really odd decisions. For someone apparently so distrusting and suspicious of everyone she was also so gullible. The reasons for her obsession over the murder were quite odd I thought.

I did suspect a lot of the characters and had a few theories as to who the murderer was. The twist and revelations at the end were quite good but nothing too shocking.

This book was a quick read but I didn’t find it fast-paced or very tense.

Overall, the book was fine and I would recommend it as a holiday read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for a copy for review.

3.5 rounded to 4 stars. Alice is really impressed with her new home in a smart, gated street in north London that her boyfriend Leo has bought. It’s not long before she’s made friends with some of the other residents of The Circle. But our Alice is scared of her own shadow and when she discovers the secret about this house she turns into a lump of jelly. The start and ending were great but the middle did get a bit bogged down with various meals, drinks and cake slices. It was hard enough to sympathise with either Leo or Alice and the neighbours were cliquey, so no one really to root for. Plenty of twists and turns to get the adrenaline flowing and some genuinely creepy bits. Another winner from B A Paris!

I love reading this authors books and this did not disappoint. It is a good psychological mystery. I liked the way the book starts, in the past, and immediately i was trying to work out what this means and how will the story pan out. I was so into this book that I even picked it up over my lunch hour which was a bad idea as I was almost late back to work.The last third of the book had me hooked and I finished it late one night. Great ending and a good mystery with a couple of twists to keep you guessing.

Another great book from B A Paris! It is a story full of thrills, that kept me guessing. Great characters with an unputdownable storyline. Many thanks for my ARC of this brilliant book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. It started off well but than slightly lost its way and became very predictable. Alice and Leos relationship was very unbelievable and Leos story was unnecessary. Its still a good read just not as god as her other books.

This book was fantastic! Consumed this book in 2 days! The twists kept coming and I found myself having to keep reading as I needed to know what happens next! Would recommend this book to everyone!

I’ve really enjoyed BA Paris’ books in the past therefore I was really looking forward to reading this one. Sadly I didn’t engage with the story or the main character, Alice and her relationship with her boyfriend Leo. I found her silly and couldn’t get my head around her motivations. The other residents of The Circle were intermingled and they often just merged into one mass. The title of the book gave away the plot too early but there again the denouement wasn’t difficult to work out in advance.

I came to this novel very late and I’m glad I did in a way. I love books where someone moves into a new community and has to negotiate their way with its rules and inhabitants, but also finds secrets are lurking behind every renovated door. However, since we moved house mid-pandemic, I think I was stressed enough without reading this unsettling thriller at the same time! Moving house is a prime background for a thriller because it’s one of the most stressful experiences we undertake, and there’s a period of feeling unsettled and like an outsider. Alice and Leo move into an exclusive gated community called The Circle. Their house is newly renovated and all seems perfect, but Alice learns a terrible secret about their new home and becomes fascinated with the previous owner - a therapist called Nina. Once the secret is out, Alice would love to find out more, but neighbours seem reluctant to talk about what happened and she starts to suspect that the community isn’t as inviting or idyllic as it seemed.

Alice tries to fit in with her fellow women in the street, by meeting them for lunch several times and really wanting to fit in. This led to a bit of repetition and the story did stagnate a little, until a breakthrough just before the end. As usual with this author though, I found myself reading it very quickly over two days because it is pure escapism. A sense of unease crept up on me before I realised it. The setting was excellent for creating doubt and feelings of inferiority in our heroine - are the neighbours keeping secrets or do they just not like her. The author is adept at using that universal sense of wanting to fit in and be liked, especially here where residents are rich and very much ‘ladies who lunch’. She also created enough doubt in our narrator to make us question whether something truly is wrong, or whether Alice has become obsessed and a little unhinged. I can’t share more as I don’t want to ruin the story but although the start is a little slow and repetitious the book was addictive, great escapism and kept me guessing to the end.

B A Paris normally has me hooked on her books but this one did not deliver the same punch unfortunately… it was well written but the storyline lacked something

3.5*
A decent enough psychological thriller, but not the best book I’ve read by B A Paris. As other reviewers have already said, the characters lacked any depth and were superficial and whingey and some of the storylines too unbelievable. It just felt like this book was missing something in comparison to her previous books.

With many thanks to HQ for the opportunity to read this ARC, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

This novel started so well. Was immediately drawn in to the narrative but sadly it lost its way and became a little like a soap opera. The ending was fairly predictable and failed to keep my attention. But I am sure many others will enjoy it.

Alice and Leo move into a beautiful home in The Circle, a gated community of swish houses in an exclusive neighbourhood. Alice becomes friendly with some of her neighbours and soon learns that something dreadful happened to the previous occupant of their home who was a therapist. It's not long before Alice becomes obsessed with Nina, the therapist...

There were no disappointments here, reading The Therapist. B. A. Paris delivers this unrestrained story with a delightful cocktail of paranoia, obsession, betrayal, secrets and lies. The Therapist is well-plotted, a cracking story and a book I revelled in all the way through. The author did a brilliant job of drawing me into the plot, capturing and commanding my attention with her superbly drawn characters, while adding in clever twists. Nearing the point of the final revelation, I thought I had accurately predicted the ending but I hadn't. With its well-executed finale, The Therapist is sure to please both fans of B. A. Paris's previous novels, as well as those discovering her for the first time. A riveting, stellar novel that I'm delighted to recommend.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel, at my request, from HQ via NetGalley, and this review is my own unbiased opinion.

What. A. Book.
How would you feel if a house you'd just moved in to a few months ago was actually the site of a horrific murder? Right in the master bedroom no less...

Almost all set in the present day, a year or so after the brutal murder of Nina, who lived in the house with her husband Oliver. The entire neighbourhood was convinced that it was the husband (isn't he always the first suspect?), even after the husband killed himself from grief. I mean... That's natural no? Better to believe the worst of Oliver and that the killer is dead and feel safer again. It's an extra level of terrifying that it all takes place in a private gated community that requires a unique access code or a resident to buzz you in!

*SPOILERS*
I loved that we only got to know Nina through the eyes of the people that knew here, even better that little snippets of the 'past' turned out to be her sessions.

Never in a million years did I guess that the private investigator would turn out to be so connected to what was going on. I didn't trust him particularly just from instinct but the multi-layered deception and tiny clues left since the PI introduced himself made for a stunningly unexpected conclusion.

My only disappointment was how fast the story wrapped up once it had all hit the fan! But that's just me being selfish as a reader.
I even really appreciate the small follow up a little while after events came to a head, like catching up with Eve and finding out how the others reacted to what happened.

Come on in , sit down , get comfy and open the pages of the book that will take you on a journey into the nightmarish life of Alice and Leo. Like a soothing hot black coffee it starts off just perfect , all hot and hopeful and full of wonderful flavour. As you get further in it starts to feel cold and harsh and you wonder if you dare finish it because once its ended there is no going back. It’s like that for Alice , her new life with Leo starts off with so much promise of only good times to come. The shine soon starts to wear off when she knows the truth of the house an the man she is living with . Like a cold cup of coffee her life has turned bitter and seemingly beyond redemption. The author captures with her words the tension that Alice feels as the discomfort seeps its way into her life. Compelled to carry on investigating she is caught up in a free fall of suspicion and distrust of those around her. Building up a picture of a fraught woman not knowing who to trust with carefully plotted scenes that leave you with a growing sense of unease. A feeling of unease I know I’ve felt when an unexpected noise wakes you or you feel the atmosphere of somewhere has changed because someone you cannot see has been there. All that just helps to build up a book that takes you on a journey into a dark twisted world that poor Alice is living in. Full of dark moments , tense and breathtakingly nerve tingling the book is a masterpiece of suspense and horrific mind games. It will leave you checking your doors are locked if you are alone and listening for unexpected sounds at night. Sleep with one ear open you never know who’s watching you sleep.

I love thrillers by B A Paris, so was really excited to be approved to read the latest one on netgalley. Unfortunately, this was the weakest one so far in my opinion. It was really intriguing, until the end, which I felt really let the story down. I don’t have much to say about this, except I wouldn’t recommend it. I do recommend B A Paris’s other thrillers though and every author is allowed one or two duds, so I would read more in the future.

Another rollercoaster of a book from B A Paris, once again full of the twists and turns we have come to expect from her books, this one doesn’t disappoint. Gripped from the start and ripped through it faster than a “share bag” of Maltesers (we all know nobody shares them 😂 ) a seriously good thriller which doesn’t let up, another great read and can’t wait for the next 😉

I really enjoyed this book but it wasn’t my favourite by this author. I didn’t quite get the obsession with Nina. Well written & all tore together nicely at the end I’d recommend this to anyone.