Blog Tour: Review for Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris and Giveaway

Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris 
Publisher: HQ
Release: 8th March 2018
Genre: Thriller
Source: Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review



Synopsis:

"A young British couple are driving through France on holiday when they stop for gas. He runs in to pay, she stays in the car. When he returns her car door has been left open, but she's not inside. No one ever sees her again.

Ten years later he's engaged to be married; he's happy, and his past is only a tiny part of his life now. Until he comes home from work and finds his new wife-to-be is sitting on their sofa. She's turning something over in her fingers, holding it up to the light. Something that would have no worth to anyone else, something only he and she would know about because his future wife is the sister of his missing first love.

As more and more questions are raised, their relationship becomes strained. Has his first love somehow come back to him after all this time? Or is the person who took her playing games with his mind?"

Review 
B.A. Paris is one of my favourite psychological thriller authors, she puts her characters in these impossible situations and I can never turn the pages fast enough as I’m desperate to see how the story will unfold.

This time in Bring Me Back we’re following Finn whose girlfriend Layla went missing 12 years ago whilst the couple were on holiday in France. On their journey home Finn pulls their car into a rest stop but once he returns from the bathroom Layla has vanished, never to be found.

Now in the present-day Finn is engaged to be married to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Not long after their engagement Finn comes home to find Ellen clutching a Russian doll a symbol that holds huge significance between Layla and Ellen and their past. As more Russian dolls are left for them and Finn starts to receive emails from somebody claiming to be Layla the past comes rushing back to haunt them. Is Layla still alive? And if she is what really happened to her that day in France all those years ago?

Once again B.A. Paris had me absolutely absorbed in her writing. Right from the start you know that Finn is a suspicious character and that we’re not getting the whole truth from him but you’re never sure how much he is to blame for what happened to Layla. I loved playing detective and trying to guess what happened back then and if Layla truly is alive and well in the present day.

I also loved the role that the Russian dolls had to play in this book. It gave the story a distinctly horror-esque vibe that you don’t often see in thrillers, adding another chilling piece to this complex puzzle.

I have to say that I did have some mixed feelings on the ending to this one. I found that I had to suspend belief a little too much for my liking but it’s also an ending that got me thinking and discussing the situation with my friends to see what they’d do and I love when a book leaves you thinking long after you finish it.

Overall Bring Me Back is another gripping domestic noir from B.A. Paris and I’m already eagerly anticipating her next book.

As part of the blog tour I'm giving away a copy of Bring Me Back! 

Make sure you enter over on Twitter 

⭐GIVEAWAY⭐
Win a copy of #BringMeBack by @BAParisAuthor
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only #bookbloggers #thriller #blogtour #giveaway #win #forgetsleephttps://t.co/S96jOnScYo @HQstories pic.twitter.com/Zn8heWrcFd

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) February 23, 2018

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

The Breakdown Blog Tour: Q&A with B A Paris and Giveaway

Hello everyone! Today I am very excited to be hosting a stop on the blog tour for The Breakdown the highly anticipated new thriller from B A Paris author of the bestselling Behind Closed Doors. I absolutely loved The Breakdown and if you missed my review yesterday you can check it out here for my full thoughts. Today I have a Q&A with B A Paris to share and I have 3 copies of the book up for grabs over on Twitter.

Q&A with B A Paris 

1) How has your life changed since the release of Behind Closed Doors? Did you ever expect it to be as successful as it was? 
I honestly didn’t have any expectations at all for Behind Closed Doors, all I wanted was to be able to see it on the shelves in a bookshop somewhere. So everything that’s happened this last year has been a wonderful and unexpected surprise. The best thing about its success is that it has bought me the freedom to write, in that I’ve been able to give up most of my teaching. Writing has now become my job.

2) What’s been your best moment as an author so far? 
Being told that HQ/Harper Collins would be publishing my book was a huge moment. Hitting the New York Times bestseller list and receiving the Neilsen Bestseller Award in January for having sold 500,000 copies of Behind Closed Doors were pretty amazing too. But without my lovely agent Camilla Wray none of the others would have happened, so the moment she said she wanted to represent me was definitely the best moment ever.

3) What can fans of Behind Closed Doors expect from The Breakdown? In what ways are they similar or different?
They are similar in that they are both psychological thrillers with a young woman who is going through a traumatic experience as the main character. They are different in that in Behind Closed Doors we know what is happening to Grace, whereas in The Breakdown, even Cass doesn’t know what is happening to her!

4) What sparked the idea behind The Breakdown?
I was travelling home one afternoon through some woods when the sky suddenly became dark, the skies opened and I found myself in the middle of a huge storm, complete with flash-flooding. It was quite scary and I began to wonder what I would do if it was the middle of the night and I saw someone who had broken down at the side of the road. Would I stop and help them? Or afraid for my own safety, would I drive on? I thought it was an interesting dilemma and The Breakdown was born. 

5) Was writing a second novel harder or easier than writing the first? 
Much harder. With Behind Closed Doors I had nothing to prove and had no particular reader in mind. With The Breakdown, I had everything to prove and had the readers who had enjoyed Behind Closed Doors in mind. I didn’t want to let them down, so the pressure was huge.

6) Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? 
Never, ever give up. Each time I received a rejection letter it made me determined to write a better novel. I allowed myself to feel dejected for about two minutes, then it was back to the drawing board, with a new idea and the conviction that I could do it.

7) What books would you recommend to fans looking for similar stories to your own?
Any novel by Mary Kubica. She has a fourth novel coming out this year and it’s brilliant.

8) Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
It’s another psychological thriller but I don’t want to say too much about the plot just yet.

9) And finally, what three words best describe The Breakdown?
A gripping read – I hope!

For your chance to win a copy of The Breakdown head over to Twitter 

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win 1/3 copies of #THEBREAKDOWN by @BAParisAuthor
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only https://t.co/NF9HeE9r0j pic.twitter.com/Yu64hZuNMS

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) February 16, 2017

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!