The Perfect Neighbours

Rachel Sargeant

Dec 2017 · HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

The perfect neighbours tell the perfect lies... A top ten Kindle bestseller

Behind the shutters lies a devastating secret...

When Helen moves abroad with her loving husband Gary, she can’t wait to meet her fellow expat teachers from the local International School. But her new start is about to become her worst nightmare...

As soon as the charming family across the way welcome Helen into their home, she begins to suspect that all is not as it seems. Then Gary starts to behave strangely and a child goes missing, vanished without a trace.

When violence and tragedy strike, cracks appear in the community, and Helen realises her perfect neighbours are capable of almost anything...

‘Dark, claustrophobic and suffused with a creeping sense of menace, The Perfect Neighbours builds to a shocking climax. I thoroughly enjoyed it’ Alex Lake, bestselling author of Seven Days

‘An original, gripping thriller that is both unnerving and shocking in equal measure. I was immediately drawn into the strange, claustrophobic neighbourhood and Rachel Sargeant creates a thrilling sense of foreboding throughout’ Phoebe Morgan, author of The Babysitter

‘A gripping tale of dark secrets and domestic lies’ Sam Hepburn, author of Her Perfect Life

‘Builds from a creeping sense of unease to a jaw-dropping climax and a denouement I defy anyone to see coming’ Chris Curran, author of Her Deadly Secret

‘From the very first page I knew I was assured of a fluffing good read from an author I can’t wait to hear from again’ Jen Med’s Book Reviews

‘A riveting, twist-packed thriller that had me hooked from the first page’ Nicki’s Life of Crime

‘A chilling and cryptic novel, proving just how difficult it is to truly know someone, inside out’ Pretty Little Books

Ratings and reviews

After a rather whirlwind romance and marriage Helen decides to give up her Head of P.E. post in England and join her husband, Gary, at the International School in Germany. After all, his job comes with a house on Dickensweg and is part of a community of ex-pats who are all teachers at the same school as him. A ready made community to slot in to - so what could go wrong. It would seem that everything can go wrong and will. This is a rather confused book that doesn't seem to know what it's characters are going to do next so just throws a lot of random information down for you to sift through. I like a good thriller as much as the next person but just chucking out lots of seemingly random information on to the page and then scrabbling to draw it together at the end does not make it a twisty thriller, it makes it a disjointed one. I can see that this is trying to evoke the Scandi-Noir genre but it has all the traits of that genre that make me dislike it so much. Multiple story threads that are developing quite nicely (and in the case of Fiona very interestingly) but that are never so much resolved as dragged to a foregone conclusion before their time. There are moments of good storytelling here and the isolation of being the "new girl" in an established community and trying to fit in whilst not becoming someone you are not is very well described. The one-upmanship of the existing residents and their very defined pecking order was well realised and convincing. What let it down was the rather grisly ending that befell our Queen Bea and her guests - moderately shocking but falling flat in its execution. The characters never really develop much past the one dimensional and I found that the only one I cared about was Fiona but the denouement of her real identity and what had happened to her was rather clumsy and rushed. It was enjoyable enough and the pacing was fairly even, it just had more negatives than positives for me so could never be more than 3 stars - I did toy up with 2 but it was better than that (just).

One of the best books I have ever read!! Fantastic. Would rate 10stars if poss

About the author

Rachel Sargeant grew up in Lincolnshire. She spent several years living in Germany where she taught English and she now lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and children. She is a previous winner of Writing Magazine’s Crime Short Story competition, and her writing has appeared in My Weekly. She has published three novels and her most recent, The Perfect Neighbours, became a top ten Kindle bestseller.