Review: The Breakdown by B. A. Paris

Synopsis: On a stormy night, Cass decides to go against the wishes of her husband and take a dangerous shortcut home. Passing through the rural wooded road, she notices a car pulled up with a woman sat inside. After pulling over to help, Cass gets a weird feeling – why hasn’t the woman in the car shown relief at someone pulling over? Why has she not moved from her spot in the seat, just staring blankly out of the windscreen? Feeling spooked, Cass decides to drive off. The next morning she finds out that the woman is dead, “brutally murdered”, as the police say.

Cass can’t shake the guilt she feels at leaving the woman alone, and soon, the guilt is all she can focus on. She’s started to forget things, like when she bought an alarm system or inviting her friends over, but what she can’t forget is leaving the woman on her own, on a stormy night, to be murdered. She also can’t forget the silent phones calls she’s receiving and the horrible feeling that she’s being watched.

After the huge success of Behind Closed Doors, B. A. Paris had a lot to live up to with this second novel, and for me, it wasn’t anywhere near as good. It didn’t grab me as well as the last. The tension was built just as well in this, steady and slowly, but it was the actual plot that I wasn’t connecting with. It seemed a bit outlandish and didn’t keep me on my toes quite as much. Annoyingly, someone hadn’t marked the spoilers in their review of this, so about halfway through reading the novel, the twist was “ruined”, but, to be honest, the ending was very predictable and I had already sussed it by the time I read that person’s review, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Another problem with this book was the lack of character development. While we felt so attached to Grace and eager for her to be rid of the troubles in her life, I didn’t find myself thinking the same for Cass. In all honesty, she was a bit of a drip and was so overly hysterical that she just became annoying to read about. Our other, more side characters, Matthew and Rachel, were flat, soppy and unrealistic.

I hate to say such negative things about this novel, but I don’t get the hype. The story has been done a million times before, and in better ways, too. Maybe I think so badly of this novel because Paris’ last was so great, but there is no comparison between the two.

Buy it here!

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin UK Ltd for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.