The Breakdown

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Oh, so many things. I didn’t buy that Cass could “feel” there was someone in her house. Nor could I buy that she remembered leaving a cup on a counter. Who remembers where exactly they put their cup? Shaken, Cass decides to retake control of her life. She visits Jane’s husband and admits to him that she saw Jane on the night of her murder. He reassures her that she is not to blame for Jane’s death. He also persuades her that her nuisance caller is probably not the murderer: it’s more likely to be someone she knows. The next time she receives a nuisance call, she tells the caller off.

Cass is about to make the worst decision of her life when she decides to take a shortcut home on a dark and stormy night. The drive home takes her on a rural road through the woods during a torrential rainstorm. She passes a car parked near the woods with a woman inside, and she stops the car momentarily, thinking the woman will approach her if she needs help. The woman doesn't get out so Cass drives off. The next morning she discovers that the woman was later found dead in the car - and had been brutally murdered! Cass’s continual highs and lows will cause you whiplash, and you will FEEL her frustration as she grasps at straws (tongs, and cans of hairspray) to keep her crumbling life together! The Breakdown is a suspense-filled psychological thriller about a woman who is slowly having a nervous breakdown brought on by a car that breaks down. The next morning Cass finds out that a woman had been murdered on that same road the night before. The marbles begin to collide from intense guilt and fear. Could she have prevented what happened on that dark, lonely road? Would going to the police now make any difference? And would the murderer recognize her car and pay her a little visit?

I tend to be really hard on thrillers, so I can totally see why others fell so hard for this one. I still have Behind Closed Doors on my to-read list, and I have little doubt that The Breakdown will be seen on beaches, airplanes, and e-readers once it is released this summer, and deservedly so. Cass is stressed, she is worried she is losing her memory, and when she takes a shortcut one night during an awful storm her life changes forever. She passes another woman who appears to have broken down in her car, rather than stop to help Cass drives on. The next day it is discovered that the woman was murdered. I very much enjoyed the incorporation of text messages into this story as well. It helped to keep me engaged as the puzzle pieces began falling into place. It was only after turning 50 that B.A. Paris began writing, when one of her daughters suggested she enter a writing competition advertised in a magazine. While she didn't win, this led her to write her first novels, including her internationally bestselling debut Behind Closed Doors. She is published by HarperCollins Publishers in the UK and St Martin's Press in the US.

The next morning, Cass discovers that this woman was murdered that evening, on that dark wooded road. For fear of being judged, Cass told no one that she saw this young woman, not even her husband Matthew. This woman’s name was Jane, and it turns out that Cass knew her. And that triggers a chain of events, leading Cass to fear for her own life. She becomes scared, forgetful, paranoid and begins to show signs of early onset dementia, which what her mother passed away from. Not sure I buy that Cass wouldn’t call the police immediately when she discovered what was going on. By handling it herself, she was putting herself in big-time danger and she knew it. But then on the other hand, she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. The only thing she can't forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt. Maybe I’m jaded, suspicious by nature or too cynical because it didn’t take much guesswork for me to figure out what was going on; I'm talking within the first few chapters. It's not even worth getting into the nitty-gritty of the plot here, in the off chance I might spoil it for someone else. What it all boils down to is preference and subjectively what makes a story great in your eyes; unfortunately for me, this wasn’t my cup of tea.Consumed by guilt, she’s also starting to forget things. Whether she took her pills, what her house alarm code is – and if the knife in the kitchen really had blood on it.

B.A. Paris is an author of suspense novels. She grew up in England but has moved to and spent most of her grown life in France. In the past, she was worked in finance and also as a teacher. She has five daughters. She has written two books, Behind Closed Doors and The Breakdown, both of which have been published by St. Martin’s Press. She is a New York Times and USA Today best selling author for her novel Behind Closed Doors. She starts struggling to remember things. Knowing her mother had been diagnosed with early onset dementia made all of her forgetfulness convince her that she too had the disease. Mysterious parcels arrive, silent phone calls, she is doubting her own sanity. The Breakdown took a while to build up speed and tension. Obviously you know something will happen, but you don't know what or when. For a while, Cass' character really started grating on my nerves because she was just a sniveling mess, falling to pieces at the slightest thing, yet taking all sorts of risks. And then...BOOM. B.A. Paris throws in a twist which, while not utterly surprising, really turns the plot on its ear and sends the book careening to its conclusion.

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To cap it all off, people are having a hard time taking Cass seriously after a series of baffling occurrences have her family and friends convinced she has early onset dementia.