All posts tagged: neighbors

Helen Cooper talks about fragmented conversations, hidden histories in families, peering in windows, &other dark truths in her debut, THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR–plus miniatures and driving!

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By Leslie Lindsay How well do you really know your neighbors? How well do you know yourself? These are the overarching questions explored in this fiction debut by Helen Cooper. WRITERS INTERVIEWING WRITERS ALWAYS WITH A BOOK Helen Cooper & Leslie Lindsay in conversation From the U.K., Helen Cooper’s background in teaching with an emphasis on Academic Writing. Her creative writing has been published in Mslexia and Writers’ Forum; she was shortlisted in the Bath Short Story Prize in 2014, and came third in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2018. The Downstairs Neighbor is her first novel. ABOUT THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR: THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR (Putnam, Feb 16th 2021) is a delicious blend of family drama meets domestic suspense as an entire three-flat Georgian home is a-rumble about the whereabouts of a missing seventeen-year-old girl. Cooper’s writing is tremendous and strong, while she presents a cast of characters: a mousy woman living alone (or presumably so) with a pet hamster, the ‘perfect’ Harlows, Steph and Paul (and their missing daughter, Freya), the driving instructor and his wife. It’s one house. …

Kelly Simmons on her newest domestic thriller, NOT MY BOY, how parenting boys is different than parenting girls, her three most-recommended books, procrastination, more

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By Leslie Lindsay  ~WRITER’S INTERVIEWING WRITERS|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ April Spotlight: Siblings A missing child, a mother-son new to a neighborhood, multiple suspects, an entangled family, and more in NOT MY BOY. I loved Kelly Simmons’s ONE MORE DAY and when I learned she had a new one out, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. NOT MY BOY (Sourcebooks Landmark, January 2021) is a bit of family drama meets domestic suspense with touches of Lisa Unger’s IN THE BLOOD meets Gilly Macmillian’s TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH. Hannah Sawyer is a writer–she’s working on various things, but mostly ghost-writing a woman’s memoir–but she’s also a divorced mother of a young boy, Miles. They have recently moved into a cozy carriage house on the property of a larger, more established home in a neighborhood where Hannah’s sister, Hillary, and her husband and daughter live. It’s within just days (maybe even hours) that a little girl goes missing. Suddenly, everyone in the neighborhood is captivated by this case. Secrets abound in NOT MY BOY, in which everyone becomes a …

Bad neighbors, domestic agony and protecting lives in THOSE PEOPLE; plus Louise Candlish chats about her new puppy, the next book, and more

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By Leslie Lindsay  Could your neighbor make you angry enough to kill? That’s what Louise Candlish sets out to discover in her new domestic thriller, THOSE PEOPLE.  Last year’s critically acclaimed OUR HOUSE had me on my toes wondering ‘who did it and why;’ I was flipping the pages uber-fast. And I love that Louise is focused on middle class suburbia, and those lingering ‘what-if’ questions. In THOSE PEOPLE (June 2019), she is acidly wry with sharp insights about human nature. For the families on Lowland Way, everything is pretty darn idyllic. The homes are stately and the neighborhood is sought-after by homeowners, the children attend good schools, and there’s that new ‘Play Out Sunday’ initiative in which a local homeowner has organized raising good press. But things on Lowland way take a nose dive when Darren and Jodie move in. Here, we meet several groups of neighbors–the married brothers who share a back garden, the couple with the new baby, the B&B owner, and well, Darren and Jodie who play loud music at all hours, are in constant …

Mary Beth Keane tackles mental illness, estrangement, family, and more in her searingly good family saga, ASK AGAIN YES, spanning generations

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By Leslie Lindsay  What does it mean to forgive? That’s the overarching question of this blistering good family saga encompassing friendship, love, mental illness, violence, estrangement, and more. I love this book, ASK AGAIN, YES (Scribner, May 28 2019) by Mary Beth Keane, a stunningly ambitious novel of epic proportions, spanning the lives of two families over 40 years. Plus, oh, my gosh—that cover—which could be just about Anywhere, USA. Or Anywhere, Period. Mary Beth Keane is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of the highly acclaimed novels THE WALKING PEOPLE and FEVER (optioned for screen by Elisabeth Moss)—and also one I happened to love. In ASK AGAIN, YES, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are rookie cops in the NYPD. They live outside the city in cozy suburban area in the 1970s where they’re married and starting young families. But—each home has different stories. There’s the Gleesons—fresh from Ireland and the Stanhopes with a bit of instability, grief, and more, setting fertile ground for an explosive neighborly connection. This is a …

Deliciously dark domestic debut from Samantha Downing will have you reading at break-neck speed and looking at your neighbors differently

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By Leslie Lindsay  5 juicy stars to this tautly paced, all-encompassing deliciously dark domestic suspense, MY LOVELY WIFE (Berkley, March 26 2019) will capture and ensnare and have you looking twice at your neighbors.  Truly stunning, jaw-dropping, and so engrossing, you simply cannot look away. That’s what debut author, Samantha Downing, is so skilled at in her debut–this is a debut, people!–and you absolutely have to read it. Here’s the thing: it’s dark. It’s twisted, but on the surface, it’s oh-so-saccharine. Married for 15 years, Millicent and her unnamed husband, the protagonist/narrator have found themselves in a slightly boring marriage. They have two kids, a boy and a girl who are on the cusp of adolescence. It’s a nice life in a nice suburban area of Florida where everyone goes to work and then home for a pre-planned dinner. There’s soccer and tennis lessons and Millicent sells real estate. But MY LOVELY WIFE (Berkley, March 26) is a powerhouse of a novel. It’s about drama, a marriage, kids out of control, and the news media; it’s also about the folks next door, …