#BookReview: The New Neighbors by Simon Lelic

the new neighborsAbout the Book

The Girl Before meets The Couple Next Door in a Hitchcockian thriller about a couple who moves into their dream neighborhood only to discover nothing is as it seems…

The perfect couple. The perfect house. The perfect crime.

Londoners Jack and Syd found their dream home: lots of space, a great location, and a friendly owner who wanted a young couple to have it.

Everything is exactly what they hoped for when they move in–except Jack makes a disturbing discovery in the attic, and Syd begins to wonder about the girl next door. And they each keep the other in the dark.

A mistake.

Because someone has just been killed outside their back door, and now the police are watching them.

This is their chance to prove they’re innocent–or to get away with murder.

Whose story do you believe?

My Review

Well this book is … creepy. I could tell from the synopsis of course that we were going to get a thriller, but there were so many twists in here that I did not see coming and could not anticipate while I was deeply into the story. I think this novel is very well-written, clearly well thought out and planned, and I did enjoy it. I will say that I think the beginning started off too slow and almost wishy-washy for me. Between Jack and Syd in the first chapters I was thinking, can we just get on with the story? I’m glad I held out though, because once you get past the drawn out intro, the real intrigue begins. One thing I want to point out is that there are some very uncomfortable scenes in here when it comes to child abuse, and if that is not something you can handle reading, I would stay far away from this one, because I actually had a nightmare regarding a scene from this book days after reading it. Clearly though this is a story that stuck with me and the ending had me feeling all kinds of twisted. If you enjoy psychological thrillers, you would probably get on with this one.

4 stars