Review: When I Kill You by B.A. Paris

                                                              

Print Length: 304 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Press (February 17, 2026)

From Goodreads.com: Who is watching Nell Masters?

Nell Masters is certain someone is following her. The hairs on the back of her neck rise when she travels to and from work, there are silent calls to her office, and a huge bouquet of flowers arrives without a card. And Nell has a reason to be looking over her shoulder, because she has a secret that she’s hiding from everyone in her life, including her new partner, Alex. But Alex also has secrets of his own.

Fourteen years earlier, when Nell went by the name Elle Nugent, she witnessed a student, Bryony Sanders, getting into a stranger’s car. When Bryony was found murdered, Elle became obsessed with finding the person responsible. She was convinced she knew who it was and her fixation with Brett Parker, the man she accused, led her down a dangerous path . . .

Now, Nell tries to convince herself that this unnerving feeling of being watched is all in her mind. Has someone from her past discovered her new identity? Has the stalker become the stalked? Or is there something even more deadly at play?

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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

This book had a smooth narrative flow, but between the slow burn and the constant back-and-forth between past and present, it ended up being a far more tedious read than I expected. For me, this story would have worked much better if the past had been told as a complete first part, with the present-day events unfolding as part two. As it was, the jumping around disrupted the tension instead of building it.

Another major issue for me was Nell herself. She managed to be; painfully naïve, far too trusting, and stubborn to a fault all at once. I understand that she was deeply traumatized by what she witnessed in the past. Watching a young woman essentially be abducted right in front of a person would haunt anyone. And when that woman later turns up dead, it makes sense that Nell would carry guilt over not having been able to stop it. What didn’t make sense was her total fixation on one specific man to the point of obsession. The thing is, she firmly believed this with absolutely no evidence (in fact she had been told by the police that the man was innocent). What got me however is the fact that she had no issue stalking this man, showing up alone at his house, taunting him, when she genuinely believed that he might be a murderer. It was completely mind-boggling.

That fixation leads into another problem: Nell’s guilt. Two people die as a result of her obsession, one through their own blatant stupidity and the other at someone else’s hands, yet Nell internalizes all of it as her fault. While those events were tragic, her guilt felt misplaced and overdone, and it carried into the present-day storyline in a way that made her increasingly frustrating to read.

This was especially true when it came to her relationship with Alex. Nell claims to love him, yet at one point she seriously considers that he might be the one stalking her. To be fair, I can understand why as Alex himself is a painfully one-dimensional character. We know he’s divorced and has a twenty-year-old son he doesn’t have a relationship with (until the plot needs him to), as well as a vague job that’s never really explored, and a couple of ex-girlfriends he refuses to talk about. That’s it. There’s very little there to make their relationship feel believable or emotionally grounded.

Another detail that completely ruined any remaining suspense for me was the repeated use of “they/them” pronouns for the stalker. Every time Nell senses someone watching her, she’s looking for a man. Every suspicious figure is a man. The person she originally suspects is a man. So the refusal to gender the stalker when speaking of them/thinking of them  immediately raised red flags and made the eventual reveal far too easy for me to guess.

Speaking of the stalker, let's talk about their chapters shall we? As there were several chapters pulled from the stalker’s "notebook". Instead of being unsettling or suspenseful, they were honestly just cringe-inducing. I found myself rolling my eyes and laughing rather than feeling intimidated. Ending every entry with some variation of “when I kill you” got old very quickly. I understand that it’s the title of the book, but if I never see that phrase again, it’ll be too soon.

I might have been able to overlook some of these issues if the ending had delivered something truly impactful, but instead it was a thoroughly anti-climactic letdown. Even when all the reasons finally came together, the reveal landed with more of a shrug than an emotional punch.

That said, I’ve seen plenty of readers praise this author’s other books, so it’s entirely possible this one was a miss for me rather than a reflection of their work as a whole. Despite this one not working for me, I’d be willing to give them another chance with a different novel.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.