Review

The Neighbour’s Secret is a book that is filled with mystery, even to the extent it is a long time before we even learn the identity of the narrator. Our unnamed narrator lives in the middle of three adjoining cottages with very thin walls so they know everything about there is to know about the neighbour on either side from what they watch on television to when they go to bed. In the evening, the narrator likes to go on long walks around the village looking into windows and watching the people inside. It all comes across as someone being a quintessential busybody but there is also an element of creepiness there as the narrator methods are very prying. However, our narrator gets frustrated when Anna Brown moves into one of the cottages and proves to be a harder mystery to crack.

Anna is operating a bakery from her cottage but our narrator gets the sense she hasn’t always been a baker and wonders about her past. However, Anna remains elusive until she gets caught up in the Ingathering, an annual event that is run by a church, which is as equally shrouded in mystery as our main characters. The Ingathering is held at a nearby estate and the surrounding environs are out of bounds for the locals. There are hints that the church is actually a cult but even the local vicar makes himself scare for the duration of the event. However, the Ingathering is brought sharply into focus when a young girl, Constance, begs Anna to help her as she is terrified she is going to be the next one to die. Anna and our narrator learn that three teenagers have died at previous gatherings but no one seems to be doing anything about it.

The second storyline involves a teenage boy, Jago Moore, who has stabbed one of his teachers and is being assessed by a psychiatrist before the authorities decide what action to take. The identity of the psychiatrist is also kept under wraps for quite a few chapters but we do learn their gender which does lead to certain assumptions being made. Despite his youth, Jago is clever and manipulative so much so his storyline is the one that is the most chilling in the novel and it would have been a fabulous plot line on its own. It takes a while for all the dots to connect between both strands of the plot but there are a number of twists that will turn everything on its head. Some twists are easier to work out than others despite the fact the author does her best to muddy the waters by deliberately dropping information meant to deflect you.

This is not one of my favourite Sharon Bolton books and there are far more satisfying twists in Daisy In Chains which I absolutely loved, however she did a good job of stringing the reader along and creating a sinister setting. For me, the weakness in the plot is served by the Ingathering as I found the church stuff incredibly boring and clichéd.