Synopsis
They keep each other’s secrets. They hide each other’s lies.
They were destined to be best friends. The four girls – all born that same hot summer. There was even a newspaper article after they were born. They said there must be something in the water on Larkspur Close. They predicted a safe and happy life for them all…
More than thirty years later, it’s more than an unbreakable friendship – it’s more like a sisterhood. It’s the girls who Jess reaches out to because she’s worried about her grandparents who’ve raised her since her mother disappeared, who Erin tells about her new business idea, who Melissa calls to say she’s desperate to escape her toxic job.
But then Chantelle messages saying she’s discovered her husband is having an affair. And everything changes.
Because then her husband is found dead… And only a few people knew about his secret.
Is it just a terrible accident? Or will someone stop at nothing to keep the girls of Larkspur Close safe and happy?
My Review
I am a huge fan of Anita and her work and I have been for a few years now. I haven’t quite caught up with everything that she has written but that is something that I hope to rectify in the not too distant future. I read the synopsis of ‘The Girls Next Door’ and it certainly sounded like the sort of book I have come to expect from Anita – an addictive and fast paced psychological thriller with more than one twist and turns along the way. Well it was certainly all that and so much more. I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Girls Next Door’ but more about that in a bit.
As with all of Anita’s books, I was drawn to ‘The Girls Next Door’ by the eye catching synopsis. When I started reading the story itself that was it. To say that reading ‘The Girls Next Door’ became addictive is a bit like saying that I like eating cake – in other words a huge understatement. I would pick the book up only intending to read a chapter or two but I would still be sat there several chapters and an hour or so later. My Kindle wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me. I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the story. Besides I had to keep reading to see if the story was going to turn out the way that I thought that it would. The more of the book that I read, the more I wanted to read and the quicker the pages seemed to turn. All too quickly I reached the end of ‘The Girls Next Door’. I found ‘The Girls Next Door’ to be a gripping and tense psychological thriller, ‘The Girls Next Door’ certainly kept me guessing and kept me on the edge of my seat.
‘The Girls Next Door’ is superbly written but then I have come to expect nothing less from Anita Waller. Anita certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into what proves to be one hell of a story and then some. For me, the story hit the ground running and maintained a fairly fast pace throughout. Anita clearly cares about her characters and this shines through in the very vivid and realistic way in which she describes them. She makes her characters seem just as real as you and I. Reading ‘The Girls Next Door’ felt like being on an at times rather unpredictable rollercoaster ride with several twists and turns along the way. I love the way in which the author makes the reader feel as though they are part of the story and at the heart of the action.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Girls Next Door’ and I wholeheartedly recommend it to other readers. I will certainly be reading more of Anita’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.
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