The Wife Next Door: A totally gripping psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (Totally gripping thrillers by Rona Halsall)

Product Information

You’ll be shocked to discover that Rob and Jess move in next door to each other … with their new partners and children. The other storyline is rather heartbreaking, and I was really satisfied with how the things turned out at the end. It’s good that you can read a book in one sitting, but I didn’t get to know her personality and therefore it wasn’t easy to care about what happened to her or her family.

If not her I thought for a while the mother since she's the crying shoulder and clearly wanted them back together. Domestic abuse, coercive behaviour and bullying are the strongly mentioned themes throughout the story and is to be expected with the premise of this book, so a trigger warning must be mentioned but the scenes were apt to the storyline and therefore needed to set the sinister atmospheric setting.Yet when she hears the young couple, Ashleigh and Evan, nest door in a screaming row, long forgotten memories of Jane's troubled childhood come to the surface.

Another difference is that I do know she does because our neighbor and I are good friends and he tells me all about it. I found the twist to be fairly predictable and even the final epulogue to be completely unbelievable. As mentioned above there are a few scenes that are hard to read so do check trigger warnings before you read. The newlyweds move in with Takashi's extended family and Sakura is soon causing consternation with her loud, uninhibited sexual performances. It was a lot of black and white thinking, which is understandable when you’re under duress, but I would have loved if the characters weren’t so judgmental of Jess, not believing in anything she said.This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Bookouture via NetGalley. Jane’s suspicions were driven by her own childhood, where her drunken father, Les, had beaten and controlled her mother, Cynthia, while she had cowered in a secret hideout in the attic. It has the vibe of a cosy read so if you dont want someting too intense but still have the thriller elements I highly reccommend this book when it comes out. The first half of the book is a bit slower than the second half as the author introduces us to the characters but I still found it very interesting and wanted to find out more about what was going on.

First Jess is happy and thinks all is well, but after just one chapter it’s all going downhill so fast that it’s hard to keep up. Many thanks to Rona Halsall, NetGalley, and Bookouture for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Despite what everyone else believes, Jane is convinced something sinister is happening in the house next door. When Ashleigh disappears and Jane sees Evan digging in his garden she jumps to the conclusion that something bad has happened.