The Paris Apartment

Fricking brilliant!! I was gasping, laughing, and talking to my phone either telling Jess not to trust someone or airing my many suspicions and random thoughts. Simply put, I loved it.

Jess, running away from her problems, heads to Paris to stay with her brother, Ben, but when she gets there, Ben is missing, and no one knows where he is or what happened. Or do they?
Seemingly innocent, the apartment building in Paris has a dark, eerie shadow hanging over it giving Jess an uneasy feeling from the moment she arrives.

Listening to the audio helped me love the story even more. The narrators were truly fantastic. They gave the character's personality, charm, and in some cases a bitterness that I relished in.
They really brought them to life.
My favourite was Jess. She is fierce, determined, gutsy, and beautifully British.

Each character has their backstories, issues, and problems, and in each chapter, we hear their stories and their truth, giving the reader little nuggets of information, so you can piece together this bizarre and deadly puzzle. But just beware, even when you think you know what’s happened, I can promise you that you don’t!

What to expect:
Unreliable narrators.
Multiple POVs.
Scandalous behaviour.
Twists & turns.
Mystery & intrigue.

Thank you NetGalley & Harper Collins UK Audio, for the arc audiobook.

Who doesn’t love a mystery set in Paris?!

Jess arrives late one evening to stay with her estranged brother in his apartment at 12 rue des Amants, where he is lodging for the time being (his friend, Nick, from University has facilitated his stay and Nick also lives in the apartment block). Upon arrival, Ben doesn’t appear to be home. Jess knows that he can be self focussed but she doesn’t believe he would forget her imminent arrival. Her antennae are immediately quivering.

She and Ben were adopted by different families in their younger years, and so they grew up on different sides of the track (she underprivileged, he moving in higher echelons). However, he did at one point helpfully teach her how to pick locks, and soon she has let herself into the apartment block and found her way into his flat, where she is greeted by his cat, and some blood, and the broken chain of his treasured St Christopher necklace. No sign of him, however. She just knows that something untoward has happened and sets out on a quest to ascertain his fate. On her mission, she comes to meet the other households in the various apartments, a quirky and generally hostile lot of individuals, all looked after by a wizened concierge, who hangs out in her tiny concierge room, keeping an eye on proceedings, like a spider in her web.

There is a cellar in the basement which houses a particularly rich selection of vintage wines, which seems to belong to the people living in the penthouse. Indeed, as she starts to piece together the secrets of the people who live there, she makes all kinds connections which drive her forward. There is one big secret she discovers fairly early on, that is alarming but very helpful to her.

The novel has a French feel, although Paris itself doesn’t really feature. I may have missed something but one significant piece of information avails itself when Jess navigates her way via Ben’s password (unknown to her) into his computer. In order to break the password, she just decides to guess and then substitute numbers for letters in the password and on her umpteenth attempt it’s bingo: it just seemed a little fortuitous that she hit the right sequence, given that they have spent years apart and don’t really know each other. She also teams up with Ben’s work acquaintance, who also enables her to progress investigations, and given both he and Ben are journalists and writers, he can cut to the chase. Again a propitious encounter for her.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and it works quite well with great voice differentiation between the characters. Each chapter is narrated from the POV of one of the characters and if they are residents, it also gives the floor number on which they live, so the characters are well chiselled and it’s easy to know who is who. The story is almost gothic in feel and the author is very good at the keeping tension going throughout. I found it pretty enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to this ARC.


A tale of shady characters and its fast pace allows for an eerie read. My most considerable criticism would be that I fail to see how this story is placed in Paris, or what that setting brings to the story. I feel like this was unfitting for the story, as Paris would allow such potential as a setting for this premise if executed effectively. Perhaps my opinion of this read was affected by my previous experience of Foley's books, as it felt familiar in tone, which I wasn't a great fan of. I may re-read this one physically in the future to see if my opinion changes..

3.5 stars

The Paris Apartment is my first book from Lucy Foley despite having had two others on my kindle for quite some time! I listened to an audio from @netgalley and must admit the cast of narrators were excellent in bringing the story to life. There are a number of characters and it’s a complex, layered story.

I’ve been reading more thrillers recently and this one followed on from Ruth Ware’s One by One. It had the same sort of who done it vibe to it where you could never pinpoint exactly who was responsible for anything and in the end it hits you with a shocker of a plot twist.

I have The Hunting Party and The Guest List in my kindle library, which one should I read next?

I love a good whodunit story, and this was exactly that!

In the audio book each character is read by a different person which has added to the experience. I liked the narrator of Mimi, Sophie and Jess in particular.

I am happy with both the plot and the characters - this book is a great choice if you are looking for an entertaining mystery set in Paris.

Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for this Advance Review Copy.

3.5⭐️

This was a so-so thriller for me, even though I did enjoy the narration from 6 different people. It was nice to getbthei point of view. For me, it was slow in the beginning and then continued to drag. There were a bunch of twists. Some I knew were going to happen and some that I didn't.

(Honest review)

Thank you for this, NetGalley, Lucy Foley, and Harper Collins Audio

Brilliant plot, good clear sounding narrator, listened along as I read the book. Very enjoyable and a pleasant experience.

This murder mystery thriller is really good! Jess arrives in France to stay with her brother Ben, but he has disappeared, so she sets out to find out what has happened to him. We are introduced to lots of different characters, such as Theo, Mimi, Sophie, Nick and Antoine, and Jess has to find out who she can trust and who she can't trust. Where is Ben, and what are the secrets that people are hiding? This book will keep you in suspense and wanting more at all times.

The audiobook narrators were amazing, and because there were so many of them, I felt like I was listening to a movie.

Highly recommended!

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

#TheParisApartment by #LucyFoley brings us back to #thrillers I am a fan of this author even if the last two reads were very similar storylines. I had my perfect combination audio and ebook. This story follows a sister's search for her missing brother and uncovers many dark secrets along the way. Many thanks to #Netgalley and #HarperCollinsUK for gifting me an #ARC in exchange for an honest review

I rarely read thrillers but this one appealed to me and I really enjoyed it. The Paris Aparment is a gripping whodunnit, with echoes of Agatha Christie, set in an elegant Parisian building. With a colourful cast of intriguing characters who all have something to hide, this is guaranteed to keep you guessing right up to the end. I loved all the narrators. Each one is a skilled actor and brought the characters and their distinct personalities to life even more. At times it felt like listening to a radio play rather than an audiobook and it was so exciting. The setting is as intriguing as the protagonists and this is the perfect thriller for enjoying on long journeys.

I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. The narrator kept me interested throughout and was great at keeping the suspense though the book.

Great story which was made even better by being in audio.

I love Lucy Foley's writing and I loved her previous two books, but I was unable to connect with The Paris Apartment. The writing as always was flawless, it was probably a case of wrong book, wrong time, I'm afraid. I do look forward to future books.

Because I didn't connect with it I have not shared my views anywhere other than here. I don't think its the right thing to do. I only share when I love a book.

The narrators did a brilliant job on the audiobook.

This book unfortunately did not hit the spot. The French accents were atrocious as were the frankly offensive French stereotypes. I found myself not really caring about the characters that much but I have to say the plot twist at the end did manage to bump my rating up a star.

The book was as bland as flour.

Such a twisty read! Couldn't put it down and the ending just tied everything up for me.
Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this ARC.

DNF at 60 percent.

I've read only one book by this author before (The Guest List) and I found it okay. That was more of drama than mystery or thriller. This book is even less of a mystery. It's painfully slow and boring with not even a semblance of plot. None of the characters managed to gather my attention; they're either annoying or pretentious or both. And then there's unnecessary sex scenes to invoke excitement or spice, which is otherwise missing from the plot. Safe to say I'll never read another book by the author.

I went into this with very high hopes - Lucy Foley is a highly revered author. But I felt this dragged quite a bit and it didn't catch my attention as much as her other two novels have.

I really enjoyed the start, but after a while it became a little too confusing and convoluted.

But I loved the three cast narration and really enjoyed the audiobook experience.

Possibly because of how hyped up this book currently is, or simply because I enjoyed some of her previous books, but I went into this really excited. I did also go into this book with Riley Sagers, Lock Every Door in mind before I even started it, simply because of the premise. Even though the two books have completely different plots, I just preferred Sagers plot and this could be why I was left a little disappointed with this overall book.

Don’t get me wrong, I still did enjoy this book and is one of the few that I have actually managed to finish so far this year, after being an utter slump lately and not being able to focus. Blaming pregnancy brain. This could have also affected my overall opinion and rating of this book. I enjoyed the writing, just like her previous two books, and I did enjoy the story, but there just seemed to be something missing from it. I didn’t like the ending, which is strange, but it didn’t surprise me and when I actually read it, it was a let down and felt more like wishful thinking and a soft ending, rather than an ending to a mystery thriller.

I still enjoyed the writing and I will continue to pick up and read Foleys books, but I will start going into them with a little bit more caution.

The plot dragged on for some time and it was hard to get the grasp of events happening. Good audio experience and the narrator is wanderful.

Yes, I enjoyed the double twist, but I think it only got me because by that point, I didn't care enough to figure it out myself. It was boring. Usually, Foley writes unlikable chracters that I love to hate, but I just didn't care enough to even hate them. The Guest List and The Hunting Party were fab though, if you're looking for a good whodunit.

Guaranteed to be one of this years Bestsellers!
Such a fun read. The setting is so well drawn I feel I’ve just spent a weekend in Paris! I enjoyed the little bits of French interspersed in the dialogue - it worked well and never seemed clunky. I also love how the author merged the concept of a gothic “who-dunnit” with a very contemporary style and themes. Lots of twists and turns. Highly recommended!

4.5 stars.