The Neighbor's Secret

I’m a sucker for novels about suburban mothers hiding damaging secrets. While reading these books might be easy—give me a free evening, and I’m liable to devour all 350 pages in one go—writing them well is incredibly challenging. To be able to portray these well-off women with equal parts satire and empathy? To write about murder while somehow leaving the reader feeling hopeful about human nature? Well, that takes the gifts of someone like L. Alison Heller.

The Neighbor’s Secret drops us into the world of Cottonwood Estates, an idyllic subdivision where the schools are good, and mayhem is contained only between the pages of whatever novel the neighborhood’s book club is discussing that month. That is, until a mysterious vandal starts making trouble, causing some of the women in the club to confront long-buried secrets that threaten to rip their peaceful lives apart. While the characters’ skeletons are (hopefully) far more gasp-inducing than anything lurking in readers’ own closets, their hopes and worries are all too recognizable. Above all, they want to protect their children.

Mixing dark comedy, big twists, and an over-caffeinated book club dictator who loves sending emails full of ALL-CAPS AND TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!, The Neighbor’s Secret will have you reading “just one more chapter, I swear” late into the night.

With its sprawling yards and excellent schools, Cottonwood Estates is the perfect place to raise children. The Cottonwood Book Club serves as the subdivision’s eyes and ears, meeting once a month for discussion, gossip, and cocktails. If their selections trend toward twisty thrillers and salacious murder mysteries, it’s only because the members feel secure that such evil has no place in their own cul-de-sacs.

Or does it?

What happened to Lena’s family fifteen years ago was a tragic accident, and she will never admit otherwise. Devoted wife and mother Annie refuses to acknowledge—even to herself—the weight of a past shame. And new resident Jen wants friends, but as always, worry about her troubled son gets in the way.

When late-night acts of vandalism target the women of the book club in increasingly violent and personal ways, they will be forced to decide how far to go to keep their secrets. At least they all agree on what’s most important: protecting their children at any cost—even if it means someone has to die.