I received this as an ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

I was drawn into this book almost immediately. It had a quick pace and it was easy to identify the characters from the beginning. I liked how there were a few twists and turns I did not expect. And I definitely did not figure out the major twist until the very end, which I like.

The characters were believable and relate-able. You could see pieces of people you actually know in each character as well as pieces of myself. It was an interesting look at how what people post on Facebook is not what is going on behind closed doors and everyone else has a story.

This was a fun, engrossing book with a twisty mystery tied in.

I received this one a while ago through Net Galley. I love suspenseful reads! This one wasn’t a thriller, but more of a low grade suspense as I tried to figure everything out that was going on with all these characters! I was thinking while I read it that it reminded me of Big Little Lies, and I see that one of the “real” reviews made the same comparison.
Recommended!

The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth is such an engaging book with many different stories.

We meet Essie, Fran, Ange, Isabelle, their husbands and families. Without spoilers, one woman has a baby whose paternity is questionable; another is suffering from postnatal depression; another “saved” her marriage by telling her husband she was pregnant, then ensuring she was. The fourth member of the group is looking for a baby stolen from its mother many years before the book begins.

In other hands, this story could easily have descended into a confusing pity party, but Sally Hepworth excels in putting together a diverse cast of people and creating a cohesive story.

She doesn’t dump the stories on you but allows the reader to absorb her characters' lives gradually, the way we learn about people in real life.

Importantly, The Family Next Door does not recoil from highlighting subjects which are often considered too hard to tackle in a novel. Do we really know the family next door and what they are facing in their 'perfect' lives? 

This ability to write about “the hard stuff” is a feature of Sally Hepworth’s previous novels, The Things We Keep, about a woman in her 30s suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and The Mother’s Promise which discusses domestic violence, ovarian cancer and infertility. For me, Sally Hepworth is an author well worth my time.

All I can say is I loved it. Great story and great characters. Good from start to finish.

She kept the pram moving constantly otherwise her 8-week-old daughter, Mia cried. Essie wanted to cry too. Today would be the day when it just got to be too much, the day when Essie decided it wasn’t worth it. Essie strolled Mia to the park in her pram where she sat on a bench keeping the pram moving while taking in the scene around her. Essie decided that she wanted some tea, so she walked to the coffee shop, enjoyed two cups of tea and headed home. Essie’s mom was coming up the walk and inquired about Mia’s whereabouts. Yes, Essie had left her at the park. It was a simple statement, nothing extortionary about it, nothing seemed out-of-place until Essie’s mother took charge of the situation.

Luckily Essie was diagnosed with post-partum depression and no harm was done to Mia the day her mother left her in the park. Years have passed, the family has grown and grandmother has now moved next door to the family in this quaint neighborhood.

Everyone seems to know each other in this family-occupied neighborhood yet they are not close friends. Essie would love to have some close friends but nothing has materialized yet. When a single woman moves in across the street, her appearance sends a ripple through the area. Her life brings surprises to the neighborhood which was once calm and tranquil. It seems that many individuals on this street had something hidden in their closet that they wanted to keep locked up but since Isabelle’s appearance, the doors have been swung open and secrets are coming out. It’s funny how one person can affect so many.

I really enjoyed this novel as I felt it was a story that kept building in intensity as the story continued. I loved how there were different stories occurring at different levels of intensity as I read. I had a feeling that something unique was going to transpire in this novel but I didn’t expect what the novel delivered. There were characters that I liked and some that I didn’t but in all, it was a fantastic mix. What a great novel and I’m glad that I read it. 4.5 stars

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

I love reading Sally Hepworth books. She can express emotions and family relations so perfectly. I liked this story but I had to keep going back so I could keep all the characters and their stories properly in my mind. In a small neighborhood a group of friends start wondering about the new woman in the development. They become obsessed with her and all of a sudden their own secrets are in jeopardy of spreading around town. Some complicated issues of mental health, postpartum depression and child endangerment are explored. A good read. I received a free ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Pleasant Court is just like any other suburb. The family's all have practice to get to, car pool to drive, dinners to cook, and husbands to appease. Essie and her husband, Ben are getting used to having a second child. Polly is still just an infant, but Polly is determined to not make the same mistakes she did with their first child, Mia. Thankfully, her mother, Barbara, is close by to help.

Ang and her husband, Lucas, appear to have the perfect marriage and the perfect life with their two boys. But everything is not always as it appears.

Fran and Nigel also just had a baby, but Fran has been keeping a secret that could destroy her marriage.

Then there is Isabelle, she just moved to the Pleasant Court. She doesn't have a husband or children, but she assimilates quite nicely because of her love of children. But even Isabelle has a secret that will rock the neighborhood and especially, The Family Next Door.

The Family Next Door is the kind of story that could have been written about your own neighborhood. The characters are so familiar, they help each other out when needed and they even gossip about the same kinds of things that you gossip about with your friends. Even their secrets are familiar. Well, some of them. All of the characters had elements that were easy to relate to and other parts of them were so foreign it was a bit shocking. I think Essie was my favorite and I loved the way that Ben was completely devoted to her. No matter what. I also think that her frustrations with the baby's lack of sleep schedule was a very real emotion and that mothers all across the world can relate. CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS I really did like The Family Next Door. It was an easy read and I was finished with it before I even realized it.

Bottom Line - The Family Next Door is the kind of read that deserves to be shared with your friends. Get a few copies, a baby-sitter, and bottle of wine. You deserve a good book, good wine, and good discussion with your friends.

Details:
The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth
On Facebook
Pages:352
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: 3/6/2018
Buy it Here!

Desperate housewives type story -- marriages and families that look good from the outside but are all hiding secrets and problems. Entertaining in a made for TV movie level.

This read will feel like the literary version of Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives) minus the commercials and waiting for a new episode each week.

The title really doesn’t do this book justice. There are way too many books titled “The _______ Next Door” that the title has lost its allure for me. I’m so glad that I gave this book a chance because it sucked me in from the beginning.

The story focuses on four women in their early to mid thirties. Isabelle is a single woman who just moved into a single family home in a nice family oriented neighborhood. Fran, Essie, and Ange are all married with two kids. All four women are hiding shocking secrets. One has has cheated on her husband and doesn’t know if he is the father of one of their children. Another faked a pregnancy to get her cheating husband to stay with her. The third struggles with post parturition depression and once left her infant toddler at the park. All of these secrets evolve and come out in the book. Reading this book feels like girls night gossip to the extreme but it kept me interested until the very end... another twist I wasn’t expecting. Highly recommended for a light, fun, girly read.

I was given a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The small suburb of Pleasant Court lives up to its name. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbours, and children play in the street. Isabelle Heatherington doesn’t fit into this picture of family paradise. Husbandless and childless, she soon catches the attention of three Pleasant Court mothers. But Ange, Fran and Essie have their own secrets to hide. As their obsession with their new neighbour grows, the secrets of these three women begin to spread – and they’ll soon find out that when you look at something too closely, you see things you never wanted to see.

This is my second book by Sally Hepworth, I really enjoy her writing. I got in to this one right away. It moves at a fast pace, but it is easy to keep up with the different POV. It sort of reminded me a little of Big Little Lies, following the lives of five separate women who all have their own secrets. I was actually surprised at the depth of some issues it touched on and it really shows how complicated marriage, relationships, and parenthood can be. I felt like anyone could relate to each of the characters in some way, and they were well developed without the author dragging on.

Bottom Line: If you liked Big Little Lies and reading about drama with a little bit of suspense and imperfect lives…I think you would enjoy this one!

**I received a copy of The Family Next Door from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own.**

I just finished The Family Next Door by Sally Hemsworth. I really enjoyed this book. It is definitely worth reading. I will recommend it to library patrons.

The Family Next Door is not at all what I thought it was going to be. I definitely knew there would be secrets exposed about the women in the town, but I didn't see the twist coming that inevitably came- and that is the way I like it. If a book can keep me guessing or be good enough to shock me, I count that as a great book. I thought Sally Hepworth did a great job developing these characters. Even though there were several different storylines going on, I felt as if I knew each of them fairly well and sympathized with the drama each woman was dealing with in her life. I recommend this book to fans of literary fiction, and fans of books by authors like Liane Moriarity.

I really enjoyed this book. I was glad to have the opportunity from NetGalley to be able to read it in advance.

I chose not to review this one.
I have adored Hepworth's other novels, esp The Things we Keep, which touched me so much and made me ugly cry,

This one didn't work for me. There was nothing new or innovative and the characters felt bland and uninteresting. I know it has been compared to Big Little Lies, but I found the only similarity was the suburban neighborhood setting with female neighbors as main characters. Otherwise, this one felt much more superficial and didn't keep my interest.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

The families on Pleasant Court all lead perfect lives from the outside. When single, childless Isabelle moves onto their street, she seemingly has nothing in common with the moms of the street. Essie, Fran, and Ange all wonder why Isabelle has chosen to live on this street. As the summer goes on, secrets from all 4 of the women come unraveled.

This was an easy read that kept me fairly engaged. People who like Liane Moriarty will probably enjoy this, although I didn't find it quite as compelling as Moriarty's books. Mothers with young children will likely relate to the mothers in the book and their struggles with child-rearing.

3.5 stars, rounded up

I wanted to like this book, and it started off promising. Based in Australia, the plot centered around three women who lived in a Melbourne neighborhood (Essie, Fran, and Ange) dealing with typical problems: postpartum depression, infidelity and parenthood. The location and setup reminded me a lot of Liane Moriarty, and I expect that they are peers in the Australian publishing market.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why it didn’t work for me, but I think there were probably too many characters and voices, for one: it took me a long time to remember who was whom. And as the plot developed, when everybody had their own individual dramas, it just got to be too much. I might read one more book from this author, just to see whether it was this book or her writing style in general that I didn’t care for, since on paper it seems to be the kind of book I would ordinarily like.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

So many secrets are brewing behind the happy faces of the women on Pleasant Court! Essie’s postpartum depression with her first daughter caused her to leave Mia in a park, where Essie and her mother Barbara found her hours later. Ange’s successful real estate business allows her husband the freedom to work part-time and care for their two sons the rest of the time. Fran’s guilt about her youngest daughter keeps her isolated from her husband and her friends. When Isabelle moves in next door to Essie, the women are surprised to find that an unmarried, childless woman is so willing to become part of their lives, and Essie, in particular, embraces the newfound friendship. As time goes on, the women’s lives begin to unravel in ways none of them ever expected.

I was captivated from the beginning, when Essie leaves Mia behind in the park, and enjoyed this glimpse into the lives of these very different women. I liked the contrast between their outward appearances and their inner demons, and appreciated the way the women came together to help out when needed. I was surprised at the ending; I certainly didn’t expect the book to end in the way it did. After reading “The Mother’s Promise,” I expected this book would be as enjoyable, and I was not disappointed.

The Family Next Door was SO GOOD. I could not put it down for a second. It just reeled me in completely, and I could not read it fast enough because I desperately needed to see how everything fell together. Definite must read!

Really good read. Easy and light to start with, but not what I expected to happen. Easy to identify with the characters.

Never read this book. Will read it later when released in hardback from the Library.