Review: Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

Jack and Grace are one of those couples you love to hate. Jack is a lawyer for battered women who charms everyone he meets with his dashing good looks and chivalrous manners. (The fact he's incredibly wealthy doesn't hurt either.) Grace is the girl-next-door who loves art and takes care of her younger sister, Millie, who has Downs Syndrome. Millie has always stood in the way of Grace getting next-level serious with a guy, but Jack accepts them as a package deal. Who wouldn't be just a little bit envious of their perfect life? I mean give me a bucket to puke in already! However, from the very first chapter of Behind Closed Doors, the reader is subtly made aware that not everything is as it seems in this fairy tale relationship and I was immediately hooked.

I've been a volunteer at my local women's center for the past few years and while I am mostly a sexual assault advocate, I did go through the training for domestic violence. I thought B.A. Paris did a great job showing all the manipulative tricks and traps an abuser subjects on his or her victim. It's very common to hear people say, "Why don't you just leave if your husband is abusing you?" No one knows how dangerous a relationship like that is until they've been in one themselves. On average, it takes seven attempts for a battered woman to successfully leave her abuser for good. Seven! And that assumes she lives through the previous six attempts, because not everyone's always that lucky.

Okay, I got off on a tangent there, but here's what you need to know about this book. I won't spoil anything for you. The writing is superb. The suspense is there from the very first chapter and never lets up.  The characters are very real and I was completely invested in Grace and her fate. The abuse/violence gets unsettling at times, but it was necessary to build to the climax. Overall, this is a great book choice if you're looking for something you could easily read in one sitting. If B.A. Paris continues to write such thrilling novels, I am prepared to become a fan for life.

My Rating: ★★★★★