The Couple Next Door by Shari LapenaMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It all started at a dinner party. . .
A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors--a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . .
Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all--a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.
Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they've kept for years.
What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family--a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.
A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors--a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . .
Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all--a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.
Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they've kept for years.
What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family--a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.
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This is the first Shari Lapena novel I've read, and it was an easy read. I was having intensive medical treatment for 6 weeks in hospital and I had a pile of books that I'd got from a secondhand book shop. This was one of them, and yeah, it kept me entertained. But I found the first half of the story was much better.
The set-up is good in terms of execution and tension and pacing--there's a missing baby and suspicion is cast from one character to another--but I also found the set-up not that plausible. Would parents really leave their six-month-old daughter at home on her own? Would they assume that she really would be fine? Because as soon as we had this set-up, I knew what was going to happen. It was kind of obvious and so, so predictable. And it also really annoyed me and made me not like the parents too.
What wasn't obvious though were developments in the second half--yes, I love when a story does this, but it didn't quite feel organic enough to the story for me. There were also so many twists being piled on top of each other by the end, and it almost felt that the author was just trying to make the reader more and more surprised. So by the time I was finishing the book, my disbelief was no longer suspended. I wasn't as on-page in the story as I had been before. I felt like I was reading the ending of a book, rather than learning what was actually going on. It was a bit infuriating really to be pulled out of the story, when on a craft level, this book had started so well in terms of set-up.
However, there was an issue with the writing that bothered me, and this was the dialogue tags. Just so many of them... I kept thinking, why not just use 'said'? But I haven't deducted a star from the review though as this book did what I wanted it to: it kept me entertained and distracted from my medical treatment, and there's no doubt that it's compulsive and a page-turner. I will be picking up more books by this author in the future.
View all my reviews
This is the first Shari Lapena novel I've read, and it was an easy read. I was having intensive medical treatment for 6 weeks in hospital and I had a pile of books that I'd got from a secondhand book shop. This was one of them, and yeah, it kept me entertained. But I found the first half of the story was much better.
The set-up is good in terms of execution and tension and pacing--there's a missing baby and suspicion is cast from one character to another--but I also found the set-up not that plausible. Would parents really leave their six-month-old daughter at home on her own? Would they assume that she really would be fine? Because as soon as we had this set-up, I knew what was going to happen. It was kind of obvious and so, so predictable. And it also really annoyed me and made me not like the parents too.
What wasn't obvious though were developments in the second half--yes, I love when a story does this, but it didn't quite feel organic enough to the story for me. There were also so many twists being piled on top of each other by the end, and it almost felt that the author was just trying to make the reader more and more surprised. So by the time I was finishing the book, my disbelief was no longer suspended. I wasn't as on-page in the story as I had been before. I felt like I was reading the ending of a book, rather than learning what was actually going on. It was a bit infuriating really to be pulled out of the story, when on a craft level, this book had started so well in terms of set-up.
However, there was an issue with the writing that bothered me, and this was the dialogue tags. Just so many of them... I kept thinking, why not just use 'said'? But I haven't deducted a star from the review though as this book did what I wanted it to: it kept me entertained and distracted from my medical treatment, and there's no doubt that it's compulsive and a page-turner. I will be picking up more books by this author in the future.
View all my reviews
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