Suspicion, fear and truth shadow Layla’s disappearance

Bring me Back by B A Paris is one of those books which keeps you up all night because you just have to know what happened – not good for my already, poor sleeping patterns. I just gave myself up to the intrigue, suspicion and fear. An ordinary couple and an extraordinary event is the subject matter of this exceptionally good book.

Twelve years ago young couple Finn and Layla are travelling in France. They stop outside an isolated amenities block in the middle of the night. When Finn returns to the car, Layla is gone.

This is the story which he gave the police at the time, and upon returning to Britain, he attempts to exonerate himself from the media and their suspicions of him. Twelve years later, he meets Layla’s sister Ellen when she attends Layla’s memorial. It is presumed that Layla must be dead, so both Finn and Ellen embark on their own romantic relationship which is still tainted by the shadow of Layla’s mysterious disappearance.

Told from the point of view of the two main characters, the dialogue is the vehicle which the writer uses to build up momentum. Finn and Ellen are happy enough for Finn to ask her to marry him – something he had asked Layla those twelve years ago. But then mysterious Russian dolls start to appear, a relic from the sisters’ isolated childhood on the Island of Lewes.

As the plot develops, it becomes apparent that Finn has something to hide and, in trying to keep up appearances, his world starts to unravel. As the Russian dolls keep arriving, it becomes a possibility that Layla must still be alive, but if she is, why is she not making an appearance. When the emails start, Finn realises that his world is going to come crashing down unless he confronts the sender and finds out what really happened all those years ago.

As I said, Bring me Back kept me up till the early hours. I just had to know where all of the twists and turns were going to end. When it finally comes, it is such an unexpected result that I was completely thrown off track. Usually an expert solver of red herrings, I did not know until the very end what was actually going on.

For a spellbinding read which will cause you to ignore the world around you, Bring me Back, by B A Paris is just the book. I can highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good juicy mystery.

Bring me Back, by B A Paris, is available from the publisher HQ Fiction, click here for details.