As an avid reader, there is nothing worse than a "twist" that materializes halfway through the book and nothing better than an unexpected ending that occurs in the book's closing pages. I am pleased to say that "The Other Side of the Door" by Nicci French is in the later category. The story focuses on Bonnie Graham and the events leading up to/events following the murder of Hayden, her lover with a checkered past. Each chapter focuses on either "Before" or "After" the murder which makes for an interesting and engaging back-and-forth with regards to the timeline. While the ending wouldn't fall underneath the "shock" umbrella, it was certainly satisfying and appropriate for this novel. French does a good job of utilizing all of her supporting characters and doesn't include extraneous and unnecessary characters to serve as "red herrings."

I felt like this book had twists just for the sake of having them. It stopped being a page turner for me about halfway through. Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for providing a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Great read by a new author for me. The plot is well written and enticing to the reader. Makes the reader feel like part of the story. I could not put the book down.

Wow. What can I say? I definitely don’t want to put this down. AT 👏ALL👏 #netgalley #theothersideofthedoor #niccifrench #netgalleyreads #bookstagram this story is told before & after. A woman who is with a dead body is the opener. Who is it? How did they die? Did she do it? The story is woven together so beautifully. I thought I knew what happened. And why. The glorious part of this book is that you DON’T know who, what, or why. This will definitely be a boon you’ll want to grab and prepare to block your schedule. #booklover #bookstagrammer #booknerdlife #bookrecommendations #booksbooksbooks📚

This is another book in my multitude of examples of when perspective/time-shifting doesn't work. It felt a little bit unnecessary and just a way for the author to make sure that we weren't bored throughout the middle and end... which didn't work for me.

Almost could just work better as a friend group drama without any murder, I was severely bored by the plot. I actually did enjoy the writing, it was relatable and easy to read. But, the plot was really lacking in almost all aspects, especially just being a thriller and lacking a good protagonist.

Sadly I will agree with most reviews. This is a quick and easy read but I just couldn’t get into it. I had a hard time getting into the story. We have a murder mystery setup and a lot of past and present back and forth. Just not my favorite.

Can’t stop biting my nails in anticipation!! You’ll love to hater Hayden and feel bad for Bonnie. The relationship between the characters is strangely satisfying. Love lost, betrayal, heartache, a constant need for validation and love. All of which come together nicely in this novel about friends protecting each other until the ultimate truth comes to fruition. How can such a secret be kept so neatly between people, yet continue to be spoiled by emotions? Nicci French does a great job at bouncing back and forth between BEFORE and AFTER in her chapters that you can’t stop reading without knowing what comes next. I really appreciated the somewhat closure at the end, but also the very open ended comments that are truly could turn into a sequel. Great job and thanks so much for the advanced copy!

The Other Side of the Door, by Nicci French. Here’s the set-up: we meet the protagonist in a “before” timeline, when she’s being asked to get a band together to play at a rather vapid friend’s wedding, and an “after” timeline, when she finds herself in a flat with the body of a man with whom she clearly has a very complicated history. Many, many poor decisions are then made - and, sadly, that’s just one reason why this book was a complete miss for me. I just couldn’t feel the slightest thing for any of the characters. I did not care who killed the guy or whether the protagonist would be arrested for the crime or who was getting away with what, and I became increasingly annoyed at the stream of seeming rhetorical questions endlessly bouncing around the main character’s head. I know that Nicci French has a huge following, however, and it is entirely possible that the “unreliable narrator” genre has simply worn thin for me. Many thanks to William Morrow & Custom House and to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Other Side of the Door starts by the main protagonist, Bonnie, agreeing to put a small band together to play in a friend's wedding. One of the band members ends up dead. The story continues by going between the past and present, dividing the before and after of the murder of the band mate and what spirals after this revelation It was a quick and easy read. I suspected the wrong person, which is good in a mystery novel.

I enjoyed this one but for some reason it took me awhile to get through it. I couldn't pinpoint exactly why this was the case because the mystery was intriguing and the writing was well done. I may just not have been in the mood for this kind of book when I read it.

This novel starts right off with a crime scene, no holds barred there. But I couldn’t find myself getting into this novel, as it skips from both past and present. The writing duo of Nicci French have kept close to the vest with their popular theme - a main character that you grow to like, (even possibly root for!) and other secondary characters that play into an inevitable plot twist.

This is one book I probably wouldn’t have finished if I didn’t agree to review, honestly. My heart wasn’t in it!

I was intrigued by the premise of this book – why would a girlfriend who presumably did not kill her boyfriend but did find his body risk being accused of his murder by cleaning up after the unknown killer?

The first chapter was beautifully delivered and I was loving the disembodied 1st person POV, the careful, almost guilty behaviour she preforms as if another version of herself has committed the crime – but then the Before and After sections did throw me off a little. I was in too many places at once and never in one long enough to find my feet. Several pages in and I know more about the woman who wedding they’re playing than the protagonist or the victim.

However, as the book finds its pace and the distance between the timeframes closes, and the personalities and dynamics come out, everything becomes much more fluid. There’s a lot of tension and the old Prisoner’s Dilemma feeling of who will rat out who and questions of loyalties.

I think this is a re-release or at least a change of title. I’m assuming this because the book feels a tiny bit dated. In the first chapter the protagonist is removing evidence from the scene of the crime – a CD of Garth Brooks! But still, it’s a great read – know the first few jumpy chapters will past and enjoy the main body of the book and a cracking ending.

First of all, I’m confused by the release information. NetGalley gave me an eARC of this book with the publication date listed as April 27, 2021, but is this not the same book that was published in 2010? Is it just a reissue with a new cover/publisher? Either way, this was my first time reading it.

When the book starts, you know someone is dead and that Bonnie is hiding the body instead of calling the police. You don’t know who died, how, or what Bonnie had to do with it. Bonnie calls Sonia to help her hide the body. The reader knows that Bonnie was romantically involved with the dead guy. 

The book then switches back and forth between “before” and “after” the murder, as the reader waits for the timelines to converge to figure out what happened. I found it dragging a little bit at times. You don’t find out what Bonnie has to do with the murder until nearly 70% of the way through the book. The author spends a lot of time describing Bonnie’s guilt and mental deterioration after hiding the body.

I found Bonnie to be somewhat unlikable, starting with how she dragged Sonia into her mess and got her involved with the murders. She just didn’t seem like a strong enough protagonist to carry the plot.

The ending was a little lackluster, not worth all the pages and pages and pages of buildup.

View my full review on my blog here: https://www.howdidthatbookend.com/other-side-of-the-door-nicci-french/

The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French is a murder mystery done in typical murder mystery fashion. There is a murder that is discovered in the first chapters of the book. The book then jumps between before the murder and after the murder, only relinquishing small tidbits of information per chapter. The main character is Bonnie, a music teacher, and we follow her throughout the novel as she covers up a murder scene.

The before and after didn’t feel like it served any purpose because the story could have been told chronologically and still have the same punch. This might have actually helped feel more attached to the characters and allow them to develop stronger bonds of friendship that I felt was missing from the time jumps.

I particularly had a hard time with the entire relationship between Bonnie and Sonia. It all seems so unrealistic and then inconsistent. I wish we had more time to see that relationship in a normal setting before jumping into the chaos and seeing it fall apart. Bonnie was such an unlikeable character and that was further displayed with the relationship with Hayden. Also, I get that there is monstrous behavior from both, but why is Sonia the only one being called out for it?

Throughout the book, I felt like I was being set up for a convenient ending with information that was never presented to the reader. What I love most about mysteries is the ability to track the mystery unfolding and discovering the answers with the protagonists. I didn’t get that with this book because it was all delivered as exposition at the end of the book. And then it was all just so convenient to bring out Sonia’s plotline that had no build-up.

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn’t stomach Bonnie and Hayden’s relationship with no acknowledgment or comeuppance. And I realize how that sounds considering the plot, but Bonnie was such a passive character and had no redeeming quality about her.

I thought this was a pretty good book, the "before" and "after" alternating chapters were a bit disorienting at first but after I got used to it, I thought it worked well. There was an unexpected twist about halfway through that really got me, but the ending left me unsatisfied. This was the first book I've read by this author and I will be reading more from her.

How far works you go to protect a friend from her own folly? What works you do if you found a dead man in her apartment! Nikki French weaves an intricate talk of secrets, lies and betrayal in this carefully crafted novel about what happens when a group of old friends who used to perform together reunite to rehearse for a wedding performance. Who died is clear once Bonnie discovers the body, but who did It and why is less interesting than the web of lies spun by everyone involved Not the author's best book, but worth reading if you're a fan

A thriller that takes you from one person to another. A fellow band member is murdered. No one knows who did it. However, they all suspect each other and remove the body and clean the crime scene to try and protect the other person. This book is intriguing and keeps you on your toes trying to determine who the murderer is. They all have motive.
Great read!

Excellent! I enjoyed the alternating Before and After (the murder) chapters. Bonnie gets a group of musicians together to play at a friend's wedding. Hayden enters the group and changes the dynamic. Bonnie gets involved with Hayden, and he's problematic. Hayden winds up dead. Who did it? Pretty much everyone that knows Hayden has a motive. Even after most of the mystery was revealed, the book kept going with twists right until the very end. Bonnie was an interesting character and somewhat scattered narrator.

"Who is more dangerous? An enemy? A friend? Or a lover?

Bonnie Graham stands in the open door of her friend's apartment. She is alone, except for the dead body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. What happened? What will Bonnie do now? Whom can she turn to? And what role has she played in the murderous events?"

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was quite surprised when I got to the end of my ARC of The Other Side of the Door to discover that it had been published in 2010. It appears to have originally been published in the UK under the title "Complicit."

Nonetheless, it was a decent read. The story is told in alternating chapters of Before and After, the incident being a murder. It is told from the POV of the lead character, Bonnie. Bonnie is a teacher, and over her summer break, a friend asks if she will put together a small band to play at her wedding. Bonnie pulls together her best friend, Sonia, her ex-bandmate, her ex-boyfriend, an ex-pupil, and the pupil's father. She also manages to get a stranger named Hayden, who is a professional musician. Hayden is a great musician, but he rubs everyone he meets the wrong way. Still, Bonnie gets involved with Hayden, albeit it secretly.

As far as mysteries go, this novel was well-written. It wasn't much of a mystery to me who got murdered, and I knew who did it early on even though there were a lot of suspects. I think that was more a matter of me reading so many mysteries rather than the fact that it was obvious. What I didn't like were the characters; they were all pretty annoying. I've read several other Nicci French novels, and this one didn't live up to the writing team's capabilities.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

The book opens with our main character, Bonnie, stepping into her friend’s flat and seeing a dead body laying in a pool of blood. Most people would call 911. But not Bonnie.

The chapters go back and forth from the time she sees the body and then back to the beginning, leading up to how she got to that point. I found this slightly confusing at times since some of the chapters are extremely short but I also found that this kept things interesting. I generally preferred the chapters titled “After”.

The ending and last page is completely lost on me so I had to deduct a star because all of that reading and I have no idea what was significant about the last page. Overall, I enjoyed this book besides the fact that Bonnie had some sort of sexual tension with virtually EVERY male in the book... I had a hard time keeping them straight!

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for providing me with an ARC.