Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her mother as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London after her father dies.

As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she marries the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne.

But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Ned?

My Review

Totally far-fetched with a twist that I (and many of my fellow book club readers) guessed immediately – there are also other twists that we didn’t. However, I still enjoyed it massively though it was a bit of a roller-coaster. When I say that, it goes up and down in levels of excitement, ending with the cart falling off the rails at the end. I’m still waiting to be rescued and told what happened.

The book is narrated from Amelie’s point of view in two timelines. Amelie in the present has been kidnapped and is being held in a dark room with just a mattress and a blanket. However, she is never mistreated and given food at regular intervals. There’s even a nicely equipped bathroom. Her husband Ned has also been taken, but hasn’t fared so well.

In the past timeline, Emily’s mother has died in Paris and she and her father have relocated to Reading in the UK. Then her father also dies and Amelie runs away to London to start a new life. She is befriended by Carolyn, who has recently split from her partner and life seems sunny and good.

But when she meets and marries the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne, things start to go horribly wrong. At this point the roller-coaster dipped as I felt the past was now too slow and convoluted. However, the present lifted it back up again.

Eventually the two threads come together, but that’s when it descended from the sublime (as being locked in a pitch-dark room ever can be) to the ridiculous as the truth unfolds.

I have read three of BA Paris’s other books Behind Closed Doors and The Breakdown which I loved, – The Dilemma was not for me – but this was way better and Amelie is a lovely main character, strong and sassy beyond her years.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

B A Paris is the internationally bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors, The Breakdown, Bring Me Back and The Dilemma. Having sold over a million copies in the UK alone, she is a New York Times bestseller as well as a Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have been translated into 40 languages. Having lived in France for many years, she and her husband recently moved back to the UK.