This delicious little gem is an engrossing read and perfect to hibernate with for a while this winter. B.A. Paris creates a wonderful domestic drama in The Guest, peppered with mystery and murder.
Someone has a monumental secret. As the culprit muses at one point, "I couldn't have that fear hanging over me", and so people keep turning up dead.
Iris and Gabriel are recent friends with Esme and Hugh. Esme and Hugh, expectant parents, move into the small British town four months prior to the beginning of the events in this novel. During this time, Iris and Gabriel's friend Laure leaves her husband in Paris and uninvitingly moves in with them. Laure's husband Pierre is a close friend of Gabriel and won't answer his texts or calls.
Adding to the marital stress of the situation, Gabriel has recently come across a teen boy immediately after a biking accident and is with him when he dies. The words he utters seem impossibly distressing for his mother, whom Gabriel knows, so he keeps them a secret.
Gabriel only seems able to connect with their young adult daughter, Beth, who soon comes home after a gap year. The landscaper Joseph, working at Esme and Hugh's house and at Iris and Gabriel's house, simmers with intrigue and danger. His connections to all the others stir up questions in the plot.
B.A. Paris creates good characters with a web of intrigue spun between them, keeping readers on their toes with questions of motivations. This quick, absorbing novel culminates with a gratifying explanation, wrapping up loose ends nicely. I give B.A. Paris's The Guest four stars out of five.
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