The Breakdown: The gripping thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors (171 POCHE)

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Cass starts to think someone is watching the house, that someone has been in the house. When she goes shopping and is leaving for home she can't find her car. She KNOWS where she parked, so it must have been stolen. Cass and the parking attendant look everywhere, on all the different floors only to eventually find her car..... In the same vein as the author’s acclaimed debut, Behind Closed Doors, this riveting psychological thriller pulls readers into an engrossing narrative in which every character is suspect. With its well-formed protagonists, snappy, authentic dialog, and clever and twisty plot, this is one not to miss.” — Library Journal (starred)

This author’s writing is so simple and straightforward, but her storytelling is potent, as is her ability to construct a tension-filled plot. This book did not grab me. Also let's talk about the character development, there was not one character that I liked, they were all dislikeable characters to me. 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. Cass clearly presents with paranoia due to driving home one evening and seeing this woman on the side of the road in a storm and she does not stop to help her and the next morning finds out that she has been murdered. Cass starts receiving random phone calls with no one speaking and feels like she is being watched. Cass starts to forget things and believes she may have onset early dementia (a disease her mother had) and it just continues to tumble down from there..... ehhhi am absolutely fine with calling this a marriage thriller or a psychological thriller, but the word "suspense" and the wrong readalikes set up certain expectations that will be unmet by this book. As a fierce storm rages, Cass fights to maintain control of her car as she makes her way home on a dark and winding road. Straining to see through the pounding rain, she passes a car pulled over to the side, and catches sight of a woman's face. Desperate to get home and out of the storm, Cass drives on, vowing to call the police to alert them of a possible breakdown of a vehicle by the side of the road. Upon arriving home, Cass fails to make that call. She forgets. Next day, the news is full of the murder of the woman in her car. I’m on my way,” I tell him, fumbling for the door handle in the dark. “I’m just getting in the car.” And when were all the new appliances delivered? How could hubby coordinate their delivery to happen when Cass wasn’t home, when she seldom went out anyway?

i recently read Gone Without a Trace, which delivered a similarly claustrophobic reading experience, as you get immersed in the perspective of a character whose world seems to be disintegrating and can no longer trust their own mental faculties. which would be horrifying in real life, but delivers a chillingly pleasant intensity when you're safely reading. I've been dying to read this book every since I first saw the blurb about it. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty and I have an un-holy attraction to books about psychos. Cass' days are spent feeling convinced she's being watched, worrying that someone is trying to break into her house, and someone keeps calling her house but not saying anything. She's coming utterly unglued, and to make matters worse, she's starting to forget things—plans she's made, occasions she's planned—even whether she took her pills or activated the burglar alarm. The only way she can seem to cope is by taking pills to calm her anxiety, but they leave her in a drugged stupor, much to the chagrin of her husband. If you can dig deep and find it in you to curb your need for concrete common sense and logic for the sake of some truly fun fiction, then you, my friend, are the perfect prospect for Behind Closed Doors. 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.The plot interested me from the start, I read the book in one glued-eye sitting until the early hours and was glad that I did, this my reader friends is one of those real escapism books. Love them. Taut, terrific and terrifyingly real at times. I have no doubt these marriages do exist. Think on that. Many thanks to Harlequin UK for my copy of this book in exchange for a professional book review. All opinions are my own. The story begins with Cass taking a shortcut home down a dark, rural road, against her husband's advice. She sees a car by the side of the road and sees a woman sat in it. After briefly considering asking if the woman needs any help, Cass drives on and goes home. Then the woman turns up dead. Vira bruscamente no sentido do atalho, e... após uns quantos percalços mais ou menos aterradores, eis que Cass chega a casa sem mazelas!

Consumed by terrifying thoughts, Cass is blanketed in paranoia. She begins to hear unaccustomed sounds within her house, misplacement of items, phantom phone calls, and the dreaded presence of someone watching her. Her greatest fear seems to be coming true. Her mother was diagnosed at the young age of forty-four with early on-set dementia. Is this what awaits Cass or something far more menacing? So when I finally got my hands on it I just had to put everything else aside and start reading. And I was pulled in right away. How many people, for example, could remain unaffected by people threatening to burn their house down with their family inside it or hoping their kids die of cancer? Barnes tells of one world-renowned coach wondering publicly if he had been involved in match-fixing. Of high-ranking French officials storming into his dressing room to yell at him. Of routinely being told he was useless by complete strangers. “I’ve never headbutted, punched, screamed or shouted yet it’s me who gets accused of ruining games,” writes Barnes, pointedly.

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The book covers some very difficult topics and can be hard to read about. However, I feel the author did a wonderful job of telling the story in a chilling way, but without going overboard with graphic descriptions. It's hard to explain but it was still just as terrifying and kept me on the edge of my seat. You become so tied up in their lives, thoughts and actions that you feel like they are your friends. Friends that need to be shook to make them come to grips with reality! Cass should stop and see if the woman needs help, right? But the woman doesn't have her flashers on, and didn't honk her horn—wouldn't she do that if she needed help? Then Cass realizes this could be a scam of some sort, one which might leave her vulnerable in the middle of the woods on a rainy night, with no mobile service to call for help. Since the woman must already be waiting for help, Cass decides to drive home and alert the authorities afterward, but when she arrives home she forgets about it. After a few short chapters, I started becoming irritated with the main character's stressing over her guilt. The first half of the book was so repetitive, it became boring, and I was considering not finishing it. The only character I found likable throughout the book was the deceased.

This is a psychological thriller that features Cass a young woman who fears she is suffering from early signs of dementia an illness that her mother had.The book starts with Cass taking a shortcut home by driving through the woods when she sees a car parked up. Through the heavy storm she glances into the car to see a woman who shows no signs of distress and decides to drive off without stopping.

The following day, news comes in that the same woman was brutally murdered the night before which sets off guilt, fear and paranoia and after subsequent events leaves her questioning her own sanity. She begins to lose control of her life and fears that she will be the next victim of the murderer. it's the literary parallel of the lifetime movie. in which assessment there is no pejorative value judgment implied - it is a marriage thriller, after all. She’s almost certain she’s suffering from early onset dementia—the condition that has stole her mother’s life—and no one, not even her husband, will believe that someone is out to get her. There are bends coming up ahead so I shift forward in my seat and grip the wheel tightly. The road is deserted and, as I negotiate one bend, and then the next, I pray I’ll see some taillights in front of me so that I can follow them the rest of the way through the woods. I want to phone Matthew, just to hear his voice, just to know I’m not the only one left in the world, because that’s how it feels. But I don’t want to wake him, not when he has a migraine. Besides, he would be furious if he knew where I was.