I read a free copy of this book in order to give my unbiased review.

This is the second book by this author that I have read and I can say she is a very good writer. Her books have been easy to read and entertaining. But every good writer knows they will not please everyone and I do have a few issues with this book.

This first one is not a big deal and is not a spoiler but there WILL be big spoilers after this one so skip to final paragraph if you don't want to see them. The first small issue, and the only one of its kind in the whole book that I noticed, is that in one paragraph it says that Anna threw a piece of paper (that had been a message left on her door by a neighbor) on the floor. The next paragraph says that her husband grabbed the piece of paper out of her hand to read it. I'm surprised this got past an editor.

Read the next paragraph at your own risk. There be spoilers ahead!

I'm going to put all of my issues that include HUGE spoilers, in one long paragraph so skip to last paragraph for final thoughts and rating.

1) I didn't like the big reveal of what was going on. I actually already had figured out that everyone who lived on The Street were in Witness Protection, almost from the beginning. But I thought everyone living there were all witnesses for the SAME case, which actually would have been a better plot line, in my opinion. But that was not the case. I didn't understand how putting everyone in one area was supposed to save the witness protection agency money. The amount of money they had to spend to even build all those fancy houses seemed a lot more expensive than just putting people in homes that were already built. Having only one handler for everyone didn't seem like a big deal and could have still been done even with everyone living in different areas. Most of the corresponding took place on the phone and not in person anyway. Basically I just didn't get the point. It would have made more sense if everyone was being protected in order to testify in the same case against the man that Anna had testified against, in order to take him down for good. Just my thoughts on that. 2) Then there's the fact that at least one of the couples in the program were relocated to a place VERY CLOSE to where they had lived previously. That didn't even make sense. If you're trying to protect people, you move them FAR AWAY from the bad guys that wanted to kill them. The fact that they were, in fact, found and killed, made you think, "Just how stupid are these witness protection officers to 'hide' these people right down the road from their hometown?" Again, I had already figured out that everyone on the street were in witness protection, almost from the very beginning of the book, so maybe other readers wouldn't have pieced that together so quickly...? *shrug* 3) Then there was the ominous feeling you were supposed to feel even though there really wasn't anything ominous going on, other than the fact that three of the witnesses being protected were found so easily by the people they were being protected from, but that's not even what felt ominous. The things that were ominous were things that weren't actually scary. Here are a few examples. First, one of the couples said somewhat jokingly that the walls have ears. Second, there was this stupid bot app that automatically downloaded to everyone's phones when they moved to The Street and they couldn'tget rid of it. The bot would send messages saying weird and intrusive things about something the person was just talking about, making everyone believe the app was listening to everything they said. For instance one person texted Anna, saying to meet her on the beach but don't bring anything with her, implying her phone with the listening app. Then Anna got notified by the bot to never go anywhere without her phone, for safety reasons. Third, Anna got a message left on her car saying she wasn't safe in that house. And the BIG number four, the neighbors in number 8, who lived next door to Anna and her husband, disappeared the day after meeting and bonding with them on Anna's and her husband's first evening in their new house, and everyone on The Street, except Anna and her husband, got texts saying to say there had never been people living in number 8. Anna asked people on The Street what had happened to the people in number 8 and their response was, no one has lived in number 8. WHY??? Why were they told to lie? All that would do was exactly what it did do...It made Anna want to know why everyone was lying. There was literally no reason to tell everyone to lie. It would have been easier and smarter to just say they had to leave suddenly. The end. But no! They were told to lie which only increased Anna's need to know what had happened to her neighbors. Did the witness protection officers actually think making everyone deny the existence of those people would make Anna say, "Ah, ok. Sorry, I was just confused. My bad."...? All this book did was make the entire witness protection program and people seem utterly useless and stupid. Yes, they were listening in on everyone on The Street, so yeah, the walls did have ears, so to speak. But being told living in that house wasn't safe? Didn't make any sense. The person who said it would have had to know that Anna was also in protection. Meaning, the person who said it was running for her life because she had been found by the people she was supposed to be protected from. So yeah, SHE hadn't been safe in HER house. But why would she say that Anna wasn't safe in her own home, unless she knew that Anna was in protection too and could possibly be found by HER bad guy? If you have read the book and are reading these spoilers, I'm hoping everything I'm saying is making sense because it won't make any sense to anyone else. I also hope that I'm making sense to the author, if she reads this review. It's so hard to explain everything in just a short review. There's just too much. Bottom line on all of this is, all of these ominous things were nothing more than the officers trying to keep an eye and ear on everyone to keep them safe. Not ominous at all. The actual ominous part was that they sucked at their jobs so no one was safe, even with these so-called safety measures.

End of spoilers!!! There are actually more things that didn't work for me in this book but I've said way too much already. No one is going to read this book of a review. Plus, I think I've made my point. Everything else I would say would just be more of the same types of issues anyway. It just seemed like the reasons for people's words and actions didn't match with the reality of the situation. As I said before, even without all of the flaws I thought there were, it was still an easy read and also entertaining enough to keep me reading. Overall, I give the book a 3.5 but leaning slightly more towards the 3 than the 4. So maybe the rating should be 3.49, which is why I went backward and gave a rating of 3, instead of rounding up and giving 4 stars.

If you read this review, you can breathe a sigh of relief. It's over! I do appreciate you reading through the slog of it all. And I also appreciate the author and her great writing ability. I can recognize the gift she has, even if I don't agree with her plot points.

Many have had the dream of a fresh beginning, the one where you and your other half relocate to an idyllic location with scenic views and endless possibilities. Only Anna and Peter’s experience is accompanied by paranoia, incredibly odd neighbours, and a coastal location harbouring many-a-secret, and not a single boat.

Their new start literally maxes out the escapism aspect that all good fiction should provide for its readers.

It’s difficult to say more without revealing too much. So quick sum up, giving nothing away: Nimble plot + people taking all manner of wrong turns = Life on a cliff edge.

What’s not to like?

The Street by Susi Holliday is an exciting and fast paced read.
It didn’t take me long at all to realise the connection that all the residents of The Street had with one another, a lot quicker than it took them to realise!
The chapters are short and packed with action. Great characterisation with the perfect blend of nasty and nice.
A great read which I’ve throughly enjoyed reading, sat in the garden on the last couple of sunny days.
Highly recommended.

What an eye-catching premise this book looked to be anyway, but when it's by Susi Holliday, I suspected it was going to several notches off the scale - and I wasn't disappointed. Susi has long been a superb creator of characters with pretty flawed traits, those crackpots you'd hate as neighbours, but here there's a whole street of them - and when the newcomers move in and have to hide their own pretty shocking secret, how long before the houses of cards come tumbling down? Well of course there are more puzzles to freak you out than there are Russian dolls within the mother doll, and just as I thought I could maybe see where a thread was going, I was tripped up. Perfect - this is what I want!

Could Not Put it Down!!

Another great read from one of my new favourite authors.

I could feel the gradual build of the protagonist's anxiety along with them, while navigating the twists and subtle misdirection and continually wondering what exactly was going on. Just when I think I had it figured out, I would be surprised once again.

The author's fast-paced style of writing grabs your attention and sucks you in; the use of flashbacks keeps you guessing while feeding you tiny clues, and the chapters told from an anonymous character's perspective add another layer of mystery.

I cannot wait to see what is next from Susi Holliday!

I enjoyed this book very much! I devoured it in one day! It was a unique, nerve-shredding psychological thriller filled with claustrophobic ambiance, suspense and surprises along the way. I liked the Stepford Wives and George Orwell’s 1984 vibes, and the lovely Scottish setting.

Thank you Susi J. Holliday and NetGalley for this ARC that was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.