Behind Closed Doors - B A Paris

Imperial in this country yes, but in Thailand? Maybe it's different there?
Agreed re the friends and selling the house.

We're overthinking this now aren't we?!

Ah yes and the home doctors visit. Surely he would've followed that up somehow and not just taken the word of Jack?

Yes, she signed parental control when she wasn't married to him. Not sure that could happen. The manager in the hotel wouldn't just look at medication (which could be anything) and believe someone was mad. I thought that was really weak.

I thought it was OK but read something very similar..Rachel Abbotts Only the Innocent.
It was a bit predictable and although you do see how she becomes so brainwashed it was a bit quick.
Will look at the other suggestions always up for a new read!

It's harder than that to prove someone's mentally ill, though. She had no medication, no doctor's notes, nothing. If a woman says, "He's keeping me here against my will!" and the man says, "She's mad!" the least someone would do would be to consider it carefully and give her the option to go away from him.

And how come she didn't have any friends? Imagine saying, "Oh I'm marrying this man I know nothing about and I'm selling my house and we're spending the money on furniture!" The friend would've slapped her around the face until she saw sense!

Thinking back, the bit where he said that there was no housekeeper would have been a massive red flag wouldn't it? I can't remember now where she was then - on the honeymoon, yes, but I can't remember if he had already started his nasty business at that point.

Yes but she was only with him a few months when he started to act like that. It would take ages to build up to that.

Also, surely he would've been better off bringing her sister to live there and then start to show his true colours?

And of course she was allowed to go to the loo at her friends' houses - all it would have taken was for her to ask to go! You don't get downtrodden like that in a matter of a few months.

I think it would've worked better if she'd been in this country illegally and didn't speak the language or something like that. As it was she was feisty one minute and too scared to mouth 'help' to a security guard at the airport the next.

As I said, I think it was a good idea, but the way it was written made it unbelievable.

Imperial she tries to get help at the hotel and he convinces them that she is mentally ill.

I am the only person who didn't like it, then!

It was such an obvious book. There was no depth to any of the characters at all.

So you start with Grace, who has a great job, used to travelling and living independently. She meets Jack and immediately gives up her job and marries him, giving up her home too, and doesn't even know where she's going to live. Who the hell does that? She spends the money from her home on buying furniture etc for the new house. That is not something a smart professional woman would do.

So he keeps her hostage, though they go out to friends' houses for meals. Not once does she go into another room with someone at the party and ask them for help. She goes on holiday with her husband - not once at the airport does she ask a member of staff for help. She's locked in a room all day long, ffs! This isn't mild abuse. Yet this woman, who we're supposed to believe is a strong, professional woman does nothing whatsoever to help herself.

Her friend, Esther, is pretty obviously onto it, but again she does nothing to help until the very end. She could easily get her to come into the kitchen at one of the dinner parties. Jack wouldn't be able to object to that in public.

I think the idea of the novel is good, particularly his intentions for her sister, but the characters are so shallow and the plot so ludicrous with those particular characters, that the whole book was just daft.

I just read it in a day too and I loved it! Thought the ending was brilliant and it made me panic a couple of times when she revealed how Jack was always one step ahead of her.

Finished it in a
Day loved it

Thanks @DoesAnyoneReadTheseThings. I got the bit about the trinket box gift being red, and that the girl with the mental impairment was unhappy about it. So at the end when you say he's found dead and the police find the red basement room is locked from the outside, how does the wife get away with the murder? And where has the girl with the mental impairment gone?

It's one of the best books I've read, I couldn't put it down. I wish I knew the eventual outcome for Grace and Millie though. It's one of the few books where they really seemed like real people.

I read 'Behind Closed Doors' in a day, but when I got to the end, I was like, "Is that it?" Am I missing something? I expected there to be a twist. Have I totally misunderstood the whole book? And what was the point of the question about the room colour at the end? So the husband was supposed to decorate the room for the sister with the mental impairment. And he was supposed to have it painted yellow. But he deliberately decorated it red because he was horrible to her. What was the deeper meaning of this? Has it totally passed me by?

I read it in one sitting yesterday, it was brilliant. Must admit the writing got a little tedious for a little while in the middle, but overall was a great book

Thought I was going to have to stop reading when I was at the part where they were on the first day of their honeymoon and the housekeeper was mentioned