Publishers usually don’t like bloggers or reviewers to review a book toooo long before its release – a rule I may be breaking here. The early version of Bring Me Back by BA Paris I received was published in early March. I think. However… other versions aren’t being released until mid 2018. So… I’m not actually sure if you’ll be able to get this one yet.

Bring Me Back
by B.A. Paris
Published by Harper Collins
on June 19th 2018
Source: Harper Collins
Genres: Psychological Thriller
ISBN: 9780008244880
Pages: 381

Goodreads

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 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 wife is the sister of his missing first love.

As more and more questions are raised, their marriage 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?

I’d heard good things about BA Paris’s last novel, Behind Closed Doors but for reasons unknown, haven’t read it yet, despite the fact it sounds like my reading bread and butter.

So I can’t compare the two, but Bring Me Back is a delightfully twisty novel and kept me guessing until the very end. In fact, for much of this book I was very very intrigued… We’re in the head of the major characters here. (Then and now.) Paris (the author, not the place!) words some of the early chapters in a way that has us suspicious of Finn. We know he’s played fast and loose with the truth, but don’t learn why. For a while.

For a while there’s an increasing sense of menace in Finn’s narrative and I was reminded of the very excellent Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda, published last year.

We also learn why the events of 12yrs earlier suddenly surface now, as Finn seems to have moved on and is newly engaged. Happily. Albeit to his missing girlfriend’s sister.

He’s put Layla’s disappearance and suspicions about him aside for the most part and it’s really only something that rears its ugly head when the media decide to breathe some life into it.

However… things change and Finn – and his life with fiance Ellen – are thrown into disarray. Cliched phrases like ‘self-fulfilling prophesy’ and ‘be careful what you wish for’ all came to mind as I tore through this book.

The support cast are all well-developed and offered up as fodder for our suspicions and red herrings.

The actual ‘reveal’ is something readers will probably have considered earlier, but not thought feasible and that’s probably my only problem with the book. I wasn’t sure – what happens – is entirely believable. However… it’s nice and twisty and kept me riveted until the very last page.

Bring Me Back by BA Paris was published in Australia by Harper Collins (HQ) and is now available. Well, maybe.

I received an early copy of this book for review from the publisher.