Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into The Prisoner by B.A. Paris is a psychological thriller that focuses on a woman being stuck in a difficult relationship that further leads to her kidnapping. Working to see if she can outsmart the people who took her the main character must figure out why she was taken and what it has to do with her wealthy husband.
Main Characters:
- Amelie: Had a hard life after losing her parents at a young age but is taken in by Carolyn and her group of friends who become her chosen family, when one of the friends Justine gets her a job at her work she is introduced to her boss Ned, after getting into what she thinks is a contract marriage with Ned she finds herself in a scary situation being controlled by a wealthy man, things escalate when she and Ned are kidnapped and she needs to figure out why
- Ned: Took over a wealthy company from his father who started it on principle and good action but does not follow his lead on that in his own life, is well known for getting himself into trouble and using money to get out of it
- Hunter: Ned’s bodyguard who before Amelie marries him has a few flirty moments with her
- Carolyn: Amelie’s friend almost like a big sister who helped her get back on her feet after her father passed, is disturbed to find out Amelie has married Ned knowing of the things that Ned has gotten into
- Justine: Close friend of Amelie’s, after Amelie and Ned are wed it’s exposed that Justine was trying to get justice for herself after being assaulted by Ned, which he effectively tries to cover up
- Lina: Another of Amelie, Carolyn, and Justine’s friends, works for Ned like Justine and Amelie and also has some things to expose about Ned
My Review
I’ve heard so many good things about B.A. Paris, their writing style and execution of a good thriller and mystery book. The Prisoner is the first book of course that I’ve read by B.A. Paris and I sadly don’t think this was the best introduction to this author. The Prisoner overall wasn’t a terrible read and I could definitely see the vision but it wasn’t great. Given the plot surrounds around the main character being kidnapped you would think it would be an exciting and thrilling read but I found it to honestly be quite flat. This doesn’t deter me from checking out other of Paris’s books in the future because I know they have significantly higher-received reads, I just picked a bit of a dud to start with.
I gave The Prisoner by B.A. Paris a 5/10 rating. I think this may be the lowest I’ve rated a book which hurts my heart, but I’ve got to be honest here that there wasn’t a lot of saving grace in this book that would make me want to rate it higher. I also can’t say I would recommend this book to anyone so I know that this speaks to how I found it. What made me continue reading the book and want to finish it out is just curiosity to see how things play out, and the fact that it’s not a long book so it didn’t feel like a waste to finish it out and see what happens.
The Prisoner follows Amelie as she works to get her life back together after losing both of her parents. One day running into a woman named Carolyn Amelie’s life starts to turn around and she is embraced and accepted by Carolyn and her friends Lina and Justine. Lina and Justine work for a wealthy company run by an even wealthier playboy Ned. When Amelie starts working for Ned she is quickly swept in by his charm. On a business trip, Ned proposes to Amelie with a proposition. He asks her to agree to marry him, a strictly transactional marriage. Trying to get his father off of his back Ned is looking to get out of an arranged marriage situation and feels like if he presents this to his father he will have no choice but to drop the relationship he feels his son should be in. After getting into the marriage Amelie realizes she’s made a grave mistake when it’s exposed that Justine was charging him with sexually assaulting her. Furthermore, since making the accusation, no one has seen her although apparently according to Ned of all people, she’s gone back home, very reminiscent of how Lina their other friend also disappeared not long before. After losing the people closest to her Amelie is dealt another blow when she and Ned are kidnapped for ransom. After spending weeks in captivity Amelie starts to see that more may be going on and there may be another reason she and Ned were taken, and it has nothing to do with the ransom money. Knowing her life means nothing to Ned Amelie must try and outwit her captors and try and get out of this situation alive.
As I said before I definitely saw the vision when it came to plot. However, I think if Amelie was maybe a bit more of a likeable character it would have helped everything play out more in a way where the reader would get really attached to what’s happening. Overall Amelie isn’t a terrible character but I really struggled to like her. She was just so naive and made these terrible choices time and time again, then would be shocked that things would blow up in her face. The whole marrying Ned thing was such a piss-off. You would have to just be plain stupid to not see how sketchy it is that your boss is asking for a contract marriage not that long into knowing you. It spoke to how Ned sniffed out her weaknesses in the hopes of exploiting them in a way that benefited him. Openly I could be being a bit harsh on her, but I just have trouble liking characters that are written to be so in their own world, just looking for what benefits them and never thinking of anyone else. Not once did she think about her friends or even talking to anyone before she does this, she just does it. When she finds out what’s going on with Justine she’s a coward and would rather do what Ned says to follow the contract than to be there with her family in their time of need. It also doesn’t help that she’s married the man that hurt them.
When it came to the parts about the kidnapping it was just so… lame. I know that sounds terrible but I feel like the best way I can explain this is if you’ve ever watched the TV show Scandal, it’s like when Olivia gets kidnapped. Kidnapping on the surface is very scary and frightening but like in Scandal, there is just something about this kidnapping that gives you the sense it’s not an average one. The intention is not to hurt or actually torture the kidnapped person but to play out this weird plot where the person is treated decently and is just locked in this room. As you can tell Amelie and Ned were not kidnapped with the intent of actually hurting them or causing trauma. Now that doesn’t mean that these types of kidnapping stories can’t be exciting, but the way this one was played out it’s not. It just seemed a bit extreme to me in the things that this kidnapping exposed, I just felt like it could have been played out less theatrically. The way it wraps up too frankly is a bit of an eye roll. It just kind of solidified the way I was feeling about the kidnapping scenes.
So overall The Prisoner by B.A. Paris isn’t the best book I’ve ever read but it’s sure not the worst. I mean it kept my attention enough that I wanted to finish it so that has to speak to something. I am looking forward to checking out more of B.A. Paris’s work in the future as I am I know they have much stronger reads out there to get into.
Has anyone else read The Prisoner by B.A. Paris before or any of their other books? What did you think?
Thank you for checking out this review, I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I drop my next review!
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