In a pitch-dark room, kidnapped Amelie Lamont tries to understand why she was taken. Her silent captors offer no clues. After her father passed, she had moved to London to earn money and eventually attend law school. Instead, homeless, she meets Carolyn Blakely and her friends Lina and Justine, who help her turn her life around, but also introduce her to Ned Hawthorpe, son of a billionaire philanthropist. Unexpectedly Amelie and Ned marry for mutually self-serving purposes, but soon Ned's noxious character emerges. Amelie must use her wits to survive a controlling husband and soon an angst-filled prolonged captivity. Weaving between the recent past and present, the book's first half is tense and uneasy with a lonely young woman stumbling into a world she can barely conceive of with its wealth but also darkness. The attention-grabbing beginning unfortunately deflates with a long set of revelations as to why she was kidnapped. VERDICT Paris (Behind Closed Doors) reduces a woman to a state of near incapacitation and then enables her to face a terrible situation with resolve. For fans of Joy Fielding.--Gloria Drake

Amelie's life is changed when she meets Carolyn, who lifts her from London's streets and folds her into a tight circle of friends. Kismet seems to intervene again when Amelie snags a position as personal assistant to Ned Hawthorpe, the playboy owner of Exclusives magazine. Then Ned makes an irresistible proposal: if Amelie helps him avoid an unwanted engagement by marrying him, he'll fund her law degree. Unfortunately, their marriage is actually Ned's attempt to distract the media from sexual assault accusations, and Amelie becomes his captive after she discovers the true extent of Ned's brutality. Before Amelie can escape, she and Ned are kidnapped and held for ransom. Weeks of terror end abruptly when their captors leave with Ned and order her to fake his disappearance. They don't expect Amelie to claim control by tracking them down and unveiling a mind-blowing betrayal. A harrowing Cinderella thriller featuring an underestimated heroine in ruthless survivor Amelie, whose sharp-edged narrative keeps the suspense churning and offers a counterweight to the malignant entitlement of Hawthorpe's world.

Soon after the narrator of this subpar thriller from bestseller Paris (The Therapist), Amelie, marries Ned Hawthorpe, "one of the most eligible men in England," whose father is a billionaire philanthropist, she's surprised in her bedroom by a kidnapper and driven off in a car to an unknown destination, where she's imprisoned in a dark room. Ned has also been taken by their unidentified captors. Amelie wonders whether there's more going on than a simple abduction for ransom, given that the Hawthorpes have expensive private security. Her suspicions of an unknown motive for the kidnapping and the involvement of an insider are enhanced given that the crime happened just three days after Ned's primary protector was murdered, which should have elevated the threat level. Flashbacks fleshing out the nature of Amelie's relationship with Ned, which is, inevitably, complicated, alternate with her desperate efforts to escape and learn the truth. Thinly drawn characters make relating to the lead's plight difficult, and the eventual answers to why Amelie and Ned have been targeted come as a letdown. Hopefully, Paris will return to form next time. (Nov.)