This was a solid and easy read, and everything you would like a good drama to be. I really enjoyed it, will read more in future.

The Secret Next Door is a phenomenal thriller from start to finish. Filled to the brim with twists and a captivating plot, this one is sure to keep readers hooked. The characters are well-developed. The story is incredibly fast-paced. This is one not to be missed! Highly recommended! Be sure to check out The Secret Next Door asap.

2⭐️⭐️
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Thankyou #netgalley #rebeccataylor for the arc copy of this book for a honest review.
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About - this is about alyson and justin. They do have a 5 year old kid name Andrew. Who is struggling with school.
They live in a ‘perfect’ neighbourhood where alyson is trying to fit in even though they were struggling .
Andrew is very naughty kid and I don’t get the writing style on him.
Anyway, until a kid was found dead . The perfect neighbourhood face with fear .

- okay so that is the part I understand the story. Up until to the end which I don’t quite follow where is the story now.
There is a story where Justin spying with the neighbours up until he confesses he can’t afford the house.
There this family of the missing kid trying to be friend again with alyson after they accuse of Andrew hitting their kid.
It’s literally a mishaps.
I have to skip some pages to speed it up,at it was a slow paced and doesn’t add up with the story and the title . So I ended up giving it 2.



❤️Shaye.reads

DNF - Did not finish. I did not connect with the writing style or plot and will not be finishing this title. Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher for the early copy!

I really liked this book. I was engaged in the story from the beginning to the end. I have read Her Perfect Life, also by this author, and really enjoyed it too. If you love a good domestic drama then check this out. The story revolves around Alyson and the people in the new neighbourhood she has recently moved into. Definitely some interesting characters and a great storyline.

A thrilling page turner. A bit of a slow start but once I got through the first few chapters the story line picked up. Makes me wonder what my neighbors are up to….

The Secret Next Door is set in an upper class neighborhood, where neighbors all know each other and everyone else's business. Or do they?

Alyson and Justin are new to the neighborhood. Alyson in particular wants to fit in at all costs, but finds that this is not as easy as it seems. As they go through family struggles, something tragic happens in the neighborhood that threatens to unravel multiple families lives.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was fairly fast paced, an easy read. There were some plot points that I felt could have been tied up a little better, but overall it was a good read. I did not immediately guess the ending, one of my favorite things when I read a good thriller. I'd recommend this if you are in the mood for something susenseful and sneaky.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Goodreads for the free copy. All opinions are my own.

This thoroughly modern domestic thriller was indeed a page turner, though to be brutally honest I wasn’t that fond of the protagonist, Alyson Tinsdale. She was too insecure, she drank too much, and though she loved her son, she was seriously lacking in parenting skills.

My favorite character was Bonnie Sloan. She seemed a more empathetic woman in my opinion.

The neighborhood tragedy was one written with understanding and realism.

The novel spoke to the oftentimes detrimental effect social media can have on an already tenuous and delicate situation. It covered themes of materialism, parenting, marriage breakdown, and parental grief.

The ending tied up the novel’s loose ends in a neat and satisfactory way. I would definitely read this author’s work again when I am in the mood for a thoroughly modern thriller.

The Secret Next Door by Rebecca Taylor

Wow, I could not put this book down! If only life didn’t get in the way I would have read it in one day! This book gave me Desperate House Wives and The Hunting Wives by @MayCobb another favorite of mine this year, type of vibes! Each chapter left me wanting more. Taylor keeps the reader’s anticipation by deliberately revealing things at a measured pace. But this book was not slow by any means! The pacing was fast there was just so much drama going on!

Synopsis:

Alyson and Justin Tinsdalte relocate to Denver, Colorado and move to the exclusive Enclave. Their house while modest compared to many in the neighborhood, is way beyond their means .Alyson has only one friend in the neighborhood, Gabby. Gabby is a mother of four and makes it look effortless while Alyson struggles with her five year old son, Andrew. Desperate for a night out Alyson invites herself to the neighborhood book club with Gabby. That night marks a downward spiral in Alyson’s life and Bonnie Sloans.

Bonnie Sloan is the neighborhood queen bee. Her family is rich and powerful in the community. In fact Bonnie is running for a seat on the state senate. Underneath the powerful fasade the Sloan family is about to hit rock bottom both financially and emotionally after an unspeakable death. Alyson makes a colossal mistake by getting on Bonnie’s bad side and falls victim to the Sloan’s unyielding power in the community.


The book is told from both women’s perspectives. However it’s not an even split and we hear more from Alyson. Alyson is questioning her abilities as a mother, and if her marriage will be able to sustain the problems living in the Enclave has brought them. With a dead body found, the focus is more on the reaction of the neighbors and the ugly secrets they hide behind closed doors.

I thought his was a terrific book and I was right there with Alyson the whole time wondering what secrets she would uncover next!

On a side note as a teacher, I did not approve of how Alyson and Justin handled hearing about their son’s problems at school. It’s important that educators and parents are partners in order to find the best solution for a child. By placing blame on others our children learn to never to take accountability for their actions.

WOW, what A THRILLING ride of domestic suspense!! The majestic Colorado Rockies are the backdrop to THE ENCLAVE, -an exclusive suburban neighborhood where perfection, money, status, and wine flows 24/7. And of course, there is a downside of living within The Enclave; gossip, deception, drama, and yes, murder.

The story is told from the perspectives of Alyson and Bonnie, two women, worlds apart different, but struggling all the same.

Alyson Tinsdale wants to give her 5-year-old, Andrew, everything she never had; a stable family, beautiful home, safe neighborhood, great school, and in doing so, her and her husband have over-extended themselves. And fitting in isn’t as easy as Alyson thought.

Bonnie Sloan is The Enclaves matriarch. She’s been playing house long enough, and now wants a Colorado senate seat. She bows out when her son is found at the nearby lake, his death ruled a homicide. Neighborhood tension is spilling over at this point.

Delving beyond the main characters into the neighborhood families as a whole, I loved the insight into their lives, which gradually showed the truth behind The Enclave facade, -their lives being anything but put together. I was glued to my seat reading about their secrets and outer disguises (reminding me of my favorite tv show back in the day, Desperate Housewives.) I found myself highly anticipating what the author was going to throw at me next. This is very entertaining, turning into much more than your everyday drama. A page-turner for sure!


*Much thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark via NetGalley for approving this arc in return for an honest review.

This was a fun read about gossipy nosey neighbors. It was a mid to fast paced suspense read for me and the characters were developed well! Read this if you love a domestic drama and may wonder what secrets your neighbors are keeping hidden from you!

When Alyson, her husband Justin and their young son Andrew move into the exclusive neighborhood known as The Enclave, she thinks they have finally made it! Although a bit out of their price range, she finally convinced her skeptical husband that it would be well worth the cost. Andrew would be getting the best education in the safest neighborhood with wonderful friendly and affluent neighbors.

But as so many know, no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors. The outside can sometimes be the facade needed to cover-up the inside strain and turmoil. Nearby residence can be jealous of what others have. Both monetarily, emotionally and physically.

Take Bonnie Sloan. She is running for political office. She has one son who will be going off to Yale, another son in middle school and a daughter in kindergarten. They are the family everyone looks up to. But quietly, behind closed doors their lives are falling apart. Her husband, who took over his family’s business has basically bankrupted them by making poor business decisions. Their two boys do not get along at all and have horrible physical altercations. And now the only hope for the Sloan family to financially survive is if a new development is built next to their beautiful neighborhood. This has divided residence.

So when Alyson gets invited to attend the exclusive neighborhood book club she jumps at the chance. Her new friend Gabby has been able to wrangle the invitation. Once there, as the women gossip about all the neighbors including her, she begins to drink too much. Alyson wakes up the next morning in her bathroom unable to recall anything from the previous night. Her husband who is under great pressure to figure out how to pay for this house they can’t afford has had enough. He begins to distance himself from his wife. That’s when Alyson’s life truly begins to fall apart.

That morning as Alyson is nursing a hangover, a neighborhood child was found on the road killed the night before. Her husband begins to sleep in his man cave which was her selling point to him when they bought the house. He also locks its door. Her son who she has perhaps pampered a bit too much suddenly has developed issues at school. He can’t keep up with the work in class and has been shown to anger easily.

As the neighborhood speculates on who killed the child, they begin to deliberate whether Alyson’s family is perhaps too unrefined for the beloved community. Alyson is grateful she has Gabby to lean on as her marriage begins to falls apart and her son is ostracized. She is sure once they figure out what happened to the dead child everything else will return to normal. But she is stunned at the contempt her neighbors suddenly have for her family.

But people with too many secrets, including her own husband, always try to find someone else worse than them, don’t they? What will normal ever look like? And the shocking ending will send ripples around the neighborhood with lives changed forever. Who will recover from their secrets?

Thank you #NetGalley #SourcebooksLandmark #RebeccaTaylor #TheSecretNextDoor for the advanced copy.

The Secret Next Door is an incredible suspense novel based in a neighborhood of Denver. Alyson is new in town and just wants to make friends with her neighbors. Bonnie is the most popular mom in town and she commands respect. She’s got her family in a good spot so she’s running for state Senate.

Everything is good in the ‘hood, until they find the body of a teen boy near the lake in the neighborhood. The community runs rampant with gossip on the community Facebook group. It’s fascinating to discover you really don’t know who your neighbors are.

This was a delight of a book. I love neighbors with secrets and moms behaving badly. I also thought the Denver location was a nice change. I do wish a little more was focused on the body that was found than the financial issues. The Secret Next Door was a very quick read and I would absolutely recommend it!

Rebecca Taylor's The Secret Next Door features a tragic mystery in a well-to-do community with secrets spilling out neighbors' front doors. More domestic tension than suspenseful, Alyson's crumbling marriage and anger-ridden 5-year-old son will leave any parent reader with their stomach in knots. Alyson's home life is in shambles; she has a husband who barely talks to her and sleeps in the basement and a son who is so angry for apparently no reason that he flies into a rage when he doesn't get his way, and she's struggling to keep everything together to create the life she always envisioned for herself. And while she thinks her neighbors are better off than she is, there are so many secrets in this community that finding a child dead near the lake and a family falling apart at the seams almost become minor plot points. I had expected more of a thriller but The Secret Next Door is more of a tense tale of "who's hiding what" and adults trudging through life with decisions that are weighing them down. The best intentions don't always lead us down the best path...

This book was sent to me on Kindle by Netgalley for review. I had problems with the language taking away from the story. Others might not mind this but I did.

This was kind of disappointing. I usually really enjoy domestic suspense books with unlikeable characters and lots of dark and twisty secrets but this story seemed to drag a lot and I wasn’t a fan of some of the misdirections or ways the characters behaved. Parts were certainly relatable (struggling to find the present your kid wants at Christmas, the hell of shopping in Costco, mom guilt, the pressures to get your kid in the best school, etc). Overall just an okay story and not a gripping or standout one. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copies!

While this felt a little more like a drama than suspense/thriller, it still kept me very entertained. There were some suspenseful moments and the “mystery of the town” I did not guess in the end. I got sucked right into the gossip and figuring out who to trust. The multiple POV really kept the mystery going. I also liked how it ended, it wasn’t perfectly wrapped up but it didn’t leave me with questions.

Thank you @rebeccataylorbooks and @netgalley for the gifted copy

A griping, thrilling novel full of deception, lies, betrayal, and half-truths. A fast-paced novel that will keep you on your toes as you flip through the pages of this novel. I enjoyed the many different characters in this novel and how they all have different personalities, and were constantly seeming to try to one-up each other. Are your secrets ever a secret for long?

A great read that I recommend.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for my gifted review copy.

The Secret Next Door has neighbors behaving poorly and the premise of of not everything looking it first seemed when you pull back the curtains -which also happens to be one of my favorite sub-genres of suspense fiction!

This was the perfect mix of being a page turner while also have issues many of us can relate to in our own daily lives. Adult friendships, marriage and motherhood are all topics incorporated into this engaging plot line and I can't wait to read what author Rebecca Taylor writes next!

Another domestic drama all about an affluent neighborhood, neighbors all hiding secrets, and one family trying to fit in above their means. While there was the murder of a young boy, it was not the main plot and it was heartbreaking to read about. Perhaps my state of mind having my own personal loss of a teenage family member this year colored my feelings about the story.
Alyson convinces her husband, Justin, to buy a new home in the prestigious Enclave development in Denver. They have a young son Andrew. Justin's character could have been better developed, not much revealed about him until the end. Andrew seemed to have undiagnosed and untreated behavioral issues.
The only redeeming quality for Alyson was her love for Andrew. Her mother-in-law described her as spineless. I agree, she was unlikable, weak, scared, and naive.
Bonnie Sloan was a veteran wealthy Enclave resident, married to Bennett with children George, Elijah, and Gracie. She is on the council and running for the Senate. This family dynamic was interesting and well described.
There is a backstory about an Extreme Golf project in the Enclave which has neighbors choosing sides. Carl Wayland is on social media expressing his furor. It will ruin his mountain views and destroy his property value. There is mystery in his past, but it was not particularly developed or explained either.
Alyson tries to fit in, she misses girlfriend relationships like her college days included. Gabby is one of the neighbors Alyson makes friends with. Her friendship may not be an asset. There's wine at the bookclub and at every gathering or social event. Alyson gets drunk often.
The story focus is about keeping up appearances, the value of real friends, the importance of family, not wealth. While I appreciated all of this, there was nothing strikingly new or interesting. I'm probably in a minority, but the mystery part could have played out more. It was almost anticlimactic.
Thanks to Netgalley, Rebecca Taylor, and Sourcebooks Landmark for the advance digital copy of The Secret Next Door. These are my thoughts and opinions given voluntarily.