For openers, rating this book isn't easy; it's just different enough to leave me a little bit unsure of whether I loved it or simply liked it a lot. But for sure the plot is intriguing and the story well written - and in the end, after I'd stayed up an hour beyond my usual bedtime because I wanted (make that needed) to finish it, I had to go with 5 stars.

Chapters switch between "writings" by London friends with benefits Jack Walsh and Sydney Baker; together, they've bought a house and are striving for a life like any other couple. Except, that is, they're not; even the purchase of the house - a surprise since they were far from the most qualified bidders - isn't what it appears to be. Jack has misgivings from the start, especially when it comes to all the "junk" left behind by the former owner (like stuffed birds, things that go bump in the night and a few beyond-strange things in the attic that he keeps secret from Syd because he doesn't want to upset her).

That's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to secrets, though. Jack encounters issues (of his own making) at his job as a social worker; Syd comes from an horrific childhood, the details of which she's never shared with Jack. While she has few misgivings about the house - loves it, in fact - she's seeing her childhood play out before her eyes in the form of Elsie, a 13-year-old neighbor who lives with her ne'er-do-well father. Bottom line? Jack needs Syd and Syd needs Jack - but each is afraid of alienating the other if their former and current lives are fully revealed.

It is when a dead body turns up near their back door that they decide to keep journals, of sorts - resulting in the chapters that reveal bit by bit what really happened, how it all relates to the here and now and depicts a fast-unraveling relationship. The ending isn't too surprising - and for some (in particular, those who view life in right or wrong, black or white terms), I suspect it may not be a satisfying outcome.

But as they say, hey, it works for me. Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really hard to get into. The writing style just didn't fit the book and was too sporadic for me to appreciate the story.

Overall, the story is a good story. It's just told in a way that is not only hard to follow (I suspect that was the intent), but it didn't keep my attention. I almost gave up. It drug on and on. I honestly thought it would never end.

If this story had been told in a more direct manner, I have a feeling I would have been over the moon for it. It's not a book I would likely recommend to many.

Jack isn’t too thrilled when he first sees the house but his girlfriend loves it so he wants to love it, too. They get a great deal on it so they go ahead with the purchase and move in. The house is packed with all of the prior owners’ belongings and they decide to go through each thing to see if there’s anything of value or interest before beginning to decorate. When Jack makes some disturbing finds in the attic, he decides to hide it from Syd. Syd has had a very hard life and he wants her to be happy in this new house. He keeps the strange noises he’s been hearing to himself, too. Meanwhile, Syd is becoming involved in the troubled life of the young girl next door.

I chose this book because the blurbs said that it was inspired by the author’s love of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. The book starts off like a Stephen King book, although the main character, Jack, swears that this isn’t a Stephen King story. The author appears to be heading in a certain direction but there’s a point where the plot shifts, more towards an Alfred Hitchcock plot. The author talks a bit about the shift at the end of the book. I felt that the plot became a bit unbelievable at that point but I was so invested with the story and characters by then that it still was enjoyable. So if you can suspend your disbelief and go with the flow, it’s an enjoyable read.

Like Stephen King, this author writes in a down-to-earth, realistic manner and his characters just leap off the page. I quickly came to care about Jack and Syd and the anxiety for their situation just grew with each page. Syd’s past life is just horrendous and I so very much wanted to see her life improve. This is a suspenseful, addictive book and I intend to find more of this author’s work.

Recommended.

I was drawn to the story after reading the synopsis, buying a new home is a scary experience, but home buying experience took buying a house to a whole new level of scary. And Jack and Sydney are the young couple at the center of this creepy tale.

Jack and Syd were in the market to purchase a home, they’ve been saving some money but are new to the whole home buying scene. The house they end up buying was a steal, and you know the say, “if is sounds to good to be true, it probably is,” is the case here. It was bought under some pretty strange circumstances, but the whole excitement won out and they moved in. Cluttered mess and all. From the start had an uneasy feeling about the house, but of course Syd loved it, so he didn’t want to ruin her happiness. This house was seriously creepy though, the previous owner left all of belongings, pictures on the walls and even his birds. Yes, birds in cages. Nope, no thank you, I can furnish my own house and bring my own pets thank you very much.

Sid is a very complex character, her life wasn’t easy growing up, and even now she is somewhat closed off. It was interesting to get to know a little more abut her as the story went on, especially when she meets her teenage neighbor, Elsie. Syd can relate to her, and feels she can help her being that she is a situation that Syd knows all too well. Jack is supportive of Syd’s relationship with Elsie. But he always is when it came to Syd. He seemed to be a good guy and cared for Syd a lot. I did kinda feel bad for him when all the strange things started to happen in the house and he tried to handle it all by himself to spare Syd.

This is told in journal form from Jack and Syd, with some narrations from both as well. It chronicles the events that have occurred, from their points of view of what happened. It did take me a little bit to get use the journal format, but it was a great way to to see everything from both sides as it is unfolding, the feelings, the fear and anger and maybe their motives behind some of their actions.

This is a lot going on in this, the house itself is filled with mystery, strange smell and noises, and hidden treasure boxes. All the while, Jack and Syd life is spiraling, some pretty horrible people have come into their lives both from the past and the present bringing up past abuse, causing betrayals and seeking revenge. All of these things together were dark and twisted right up until the end. And what an ending too.

The New Neighbors was one those reads that send chills down your spine, and I am not going to be buying a house for a while now after reading this, just saying. It really was a great psychological thriller and one that will have you looking over your shoulder.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers then you will enjoy this book. Mr. Lelic does not bring the bold in your face chills but a more subtle approach. One that slowly will have you questioning everything you know or thought you knew about Jack and Syd.

The alternating voices of Jack and Syd was nice. It helped to bring me closer to them. Additionally, it kept their voices strong and prominent in the story. Plus; as the saying goes "There is two sides two each story". In this case Jack and Syd's stories.

The secondary characters were lacking. So, kudos again to Mr. Lelic for keeping the story intriguing enough that I kept reading it to the very end. Which, the ending was fine but a little weak. Overall, this is a book worth your time. "Beware your neighbors".

*Note - I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Sometimes, writing the description of the book is the hardest part of reviewing. Let’s see...

Jack and Sydney are a young couple, just starting out in life, and have been trying for some time to buy their first home in the overpriced London market. Despite working hard, scrimping, and saving, and all the other boot-strappy cliches that Boomers love to trot out, they have been outbid at every turn, and have all but given up when they stumble upon The House. It’s old, and creepy, and full of the previous owner’s hoarded possessions, including dozens, if not hundreds of taxidermied dead animals, but they are in luck!! The owner has a soft spot for young couples, and chooses them to buy the place, despite many higher offers.

It’s a great opening for a haunted house story, but this isn’t that kind of book, so let’s try this again.

When Jack and Sydney first met, they knew they belonged together. She has had a horrible childhood, and is still carrying loads of baggage, and he’s a social worker, kind and patient, who lives to make people’s lives better. Sydney has a hard time believing in his altruistic motives, and he’s so afraid to scare her off that he keeps large parts of his life hidden from her. Can they build a future together, or will the weight of their secrets tear them apart?

Which is a great start to a romance, but New Neighbors isn’t that kind of book either. Back to the drawing board!

After finally buying and moving into their dream home, Jack and Sydney find themselves thrust into a tangled web of deception, confusion, lies, and secrets. When their neighbor is brutally murdered, Jack quickly becomes the number one suspect, and it’s a race against time to prove his innocence before he is sent to prison forever.

….is how the blurb would read for a twisty murder mystery, and although that’s the genre that probably comes closest to fitting The New Neighbors, it’s not all there is to it either.

The New Neighbors has elements of all of the above - a house that’s haunted, a romance between two people who really don’t know how to handle fragile things like love, and oh yeah, a dead guy who could have been killed by one of them, or both of them, or someone else entirely.

The story is really, really, REALLY good, but let’s face it - twisty murder mysteries are the Pringles of the literary world. You eat them, they’re kind of tasty, you may toss a few more down the hatch, but they’re mostly forgettable. Hell, I’ve read three twisty mysteries in the past week, and I’ll probably devour another half-dozen before the month is out, and I don’t bother reviewing most of them, because while some of them are quite good, most of them aren’t very special.

What makes The New Neighbors different is the voices of the narrators. Jack & Sydney switch off, which isn’t unusual, but THEY ACTUALLY RESPOND TO WHAT EACH OTHER HAS WRITTEN. The first chapter belongs to Jack, and his narration is about what you’d expect. He’s articulate and literary, and maybe just a bit stuffy, but then in Chapter Two, Sydney jumps in with an eye-rolling, are-you-kidding-me reply, and that, my friends, is a trick I’ve never seen before in fiction. The narrating characters have a new kind of life and energy, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

The one negative in The New Neighbors is a lack of well-rounded supporting characters. There are a number of them, but they are all pretty flat - a bad person is just evil, a victim is just pitiable, a tenacious cop is just stubborn. After the richly drawn, smart, funny, sometimes frustrating interplay between Jack and Sydney, the lack of nuance in everyone else is that much sharper.

But in the end, I want to just throw all the happy neurons at Simon Lelic for giving me something I have never seen before, because that’s really, really hard to do.

The Nerd’s Rating: FIVE HAPPY NEURONS (and a taxidermied seagull, because I have got to see my cat’s reaction to that).

Sometimes a cover blurb gets it wrong. As a reader, I can roll with something that's not what I expected, if the end product exceeds my expectation. Unfortunately, this one didn't. If you're going into this expecting something scary, creepy, or maybe even a supernatural twist, you're barking up the wrong bookshelf.

Syd and Jack are a young couple who think they've lucked into a steal of a house in the overpriced London housing market. The previous owner moved abruptly, leaving basically everything he owned for the new owners to deal with. Jack finds a mysterious box in the attic, which really caught my attention. Then... nothing. Syd has lots of issues due to her childhood. I think I was supposed to feel some emotions toward her, but her self-centered approach to her relationships just didn't do it for me. Yes, there were a few twists and turns, but I didn't care enough about the characters for those to really shock me. Unfortunately this was a miss for me.

“The New Neighbors” by Simon Lelic is a dark, intense, nerve-wracking novel to read before you go to sleep. The Genres for this novel are Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, and Fiction. The timeline of the story vacillates between the past and present as it pertains to the characters and events in the story.

The characters in this story are complicated, complex, dysfunctional, pathological and could be suspect. This has the feel of Twilight Zone and an Alfred Hitchcock movie. There are twists and turns, and this has a ghostly chiller feel.

When Jack and Syd get the almost perfect house that they were sure they never could afford it was hard to believe. The person who the house had belonged to seemed to have very questionable choices of decor and accessories. The noises in the house at night seem very strange. When Jack gets out of bed to see what it going on, Syd tells him when he touched her face, his hands were so cold. Only, Jack hadn’t touched her face.

As Jack is up in the attic he discovers something that is very frightening. He doesn’t want to alarm Syd who gets upset very easily. Both Syd and Jack come from dysfunctional families and trust is very hard for Sid.

The young girl and father that live across from them seem to have very dark secrets. Syd befriends the girl with disastrous consequences. Some of the neighbors are quirky. Syd can relate to the young girl and her problems.

Unfortunately, there is a dead body found outside in their alley that has been stabbed 17 times. Who is suspect? Will someone get away with murder?

Simon Lelic writes about dark secrets, dark pasts, betrayal and trust. I would recommend this book for any reader that enjoys a psychological thriller, and a suspenseful mystery. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.

This is a crazy book. I don’t really have any other words to describe it accurately. The subject matter is very ho-hum until you start getting into issues. But who’s issues are they?

What you think you know it’s really not what you know. Nothing is really what it seems. The author combines a little creep with plenty of thrills to keep us on our toes.

This book was written in a very interesting manner. From dual points of view, it is a snapshot of the occurrences that are happening to the main characters in their brand new home and the fallout in their life.

Written much like a journal, in a few spots, it was difficult to follow. Time seem to jump. The story went from him to her and you thought you were lost until you continue reading and realized that everything was coming together.

Keeping the reader a little off-center made this story so believable. Twisted minds and not knowing whether to who to believe or not to believe. Thinking the story was about one thing when in actuality it was something completely different. The New Neighbors is an amazing, twisted ride.

The ending, of course, brought it all together and while I love knowing the “whodunit”, I think I almost wish the author would have kept that a secret and left us wondering. I think it made me lose a little respect for the characters involved. But then again, I do completely understand why.

This book is loaded with plenty of mind twists and turns. You definitely want to pick it up on a rainy cozy weekend and get lost in it. But make sure your doors are locked, just in case.

An engaging opening with a unique spin on dual narrators and a fast-paced plot make this a must-read for fans of Shari Lapena and B.A. Paris.

The book was interesting. I enjoyed the premise and the story that the author was telling. There were times that I was confused as to what was happening and when it was happening. Sometimes the lines between past and present are a little blurred.

Jack and Syd finally have a home of their own. After living apart for years in order to save, they are ready to start the next step in their life. What they don't count on is a sinister presence that seems to be in and around the house.

After Syd befriends a neighbor girl, things start to get complicated really fast.

The story was engaging enough. I finished the book because I wanted to see where the story was going, but it wasn't something I wasn't able to put down.

It took me a little bit to get into this book but once I did I was hooked. It's told from both Jack and Syd's points of view. Sometimes it did seem like the story jumped all over the place making it a bit confusing at times. Overall it was a great read- a fast paced thrilled with lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end!

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for and ARC copy of the book.

This was close to a DNF. It just failed to reach my expectations. What's in the attic and why ignore it took a backseat to dealing with every major issue you can think of. It could have used some possible trigger topic warnings which it doesn't have. It didn't get too graphic, but it's nice to know that is, or isn't, in a book beforehand. I have really mixed emotions about our main couple and their ability to think.

My copy came from Net Galley. My review is my own with my own thoughts and opinions. This review is left of my own free will.

The story begins with an intriguing scene that caught my interest right away, one of the characters declares “The thing I’ve planned so carefully has gone drastically, horribly wrong.”
The beginning was great and I loved set up of how a new couple Jack and Syd were shopping for their first home in London. Syd falls instantly in love with the house, while Jack has his reservations. The house was described as being abandoned by the owner who fled to Australia to find true love, leaving all his possessions and a cluttered mess behind.

They buy the house and strange things begin to happen. I was thinking this was going to venture into horror or perhaps paranormal…..smells penetrating the walls, gruesome discovery in the attic, and strange happenings.

What started out as a dark thriller took a turn and became more of a domestic abuse type story/thriller. I wanted to find out how this twisted plot played out, but in the end this one left me underwhelmed.

Review: THE NEW NEIGHBORS by Simon Lelic

Psychological thrillers, as a subgenre, are often billed or blurbed as "complex, riveting, horrifying." As a lifelong devourer of hauntings, I ponder: "horrifying? Really?" But sometimes this category of fiction delivers exactly that: I think of Ann Troup, Riley Sager, and now, of Simon Lelic. I really expected this engrossing novel to offer a spooky haunted house. There are hauntings, all right: individuals haunted by the past that is ever with them, the never-ending horror of their present, and more than one haunted by their own evil. So even though I didn't find the traditional haunted house, even though I didn't find a murderous neighbor, shades of Dr. Crippen, I found a riveting and compelling psychological mystery with plenty of past and present horror and more twists than an angry python.

All of the characters are well-written. Some of the characters have some redeeming qualities that helped me to forgive some of the darker choices they made during the story while others you were hoping would get what was coming to them and even that would be too good for them. Told from alternating viewpoints, the story started out a little slow for me and a little confusing but towards the middle things started to come together and make sense for me. This is the first book I have read by this author and I am looking forward to reading more. I received a copy of this book via netgalley.

Very interesting book. The ending is not what I expected but I like surprises. The description does not really tell what it is about. It will hold the reader's attention waiting to find out what happens next. Lots of twists and turns along the way. If you like psychological suspense you will like this book.

A solid 4/5 stars - full review to follow closer to publication day!

The New Neighbors is a deeply-rooted dark and devious thriller that will keep you guessing until the end. Jack and Sydney (Syd) are a modern couple in London looking to buy a house after saving everything they could in order to fulfill their dreams together. The duo attend an open house with their realtor, Evan, and immediately fall in love with this particular property. The house has more than enough space, is in a great area in London, and is around the price range that they are looking at. Luckily for the couple, the previous owner accepts their bid and the exchange is settled. Jack and Syd have never lived together and this will be the first time that they'll be residing together as a couple. Once the couple moves in, they agree to sell off all the furnishings that were left by the previous owner. The previous owner mysteriously bolted to Perth, Australia to follow his heart and left all his belongings with the house. As the couple starts rearranging the house and making it theirs, Jack finds something unsettling in the attic. Jack decides to keep this discovery a secret from his overly emotional significant other in hopes to not terrify her into second guessing this move together. As their progress with the house develops, the couple starts experiencing further disturbances around the property. Soon enough, the police have been called over to their residence—to solve the murder in their backyard.

I was really excited to pick up The New Neighbors as soon as I read the plot. My first opinion was that this story would having The Couple Next Door vibes and I really wanted to compare the two. As I begin reading, my initial impression of the story was, "wow, this book is going to be creepy! I'm getting The Grip of It vibes instead!", which if you know me—that is a very good compliment! Without giving anymore of the plot away, I was really intrigued by this possible haunted house/horror story. As the story progressed, Lelic changed course and the story became a domestic thriller/crime story. I was skeptical at first while reading during this recourse and was kind of disappointed by this transition. The writing in the first half of the story is so juicy, so robust, and so masterfully persuasive that I started to get discouraged by where the story was heading in the second half. As I kept reading about Jack and Syd, I felt that it was going to become very predictable for the avid thriller book seeker. What saves this story is Lelic's usage of red herrings along the way! I usually am not a big fan of red herrings because they can be cheap ways to promote suspense in a lackluster story, however the red herrings in The New Neighbors really added to the plot while giving us a detour in the main plot. I wholeheartedly welcomed each plot twist along the way! As I got towards the end of the story, I grew a connection to the characters. I related to Syd's challenges growing up and Jack's strength to hold on. There's a few other characters that I grew to have strong feelings for as well, but I'm going to leave that up to you to figure you. With a satisfying ending, The New Neighbors gets a solid 3 stars from me. Thank you Berkley Publishing for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Loved the writing style of this book, and the back and forth banter between Jack & Sydney. The premise for the book was really great, the flashbacks, I just think there wasn’t enough explanation for some parts, and other parts didn’t seem entirely necessary.