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The Neighbor's Secret by L. Alison Heller

Contemporary fiction

The Neighbor's Secret

Early Release

This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.

by L. Alison Heller

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Quick take

A suburban book club discovers life can be more disturbing than fiction when a vandal disrupts life on the cul-de-sac.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Movieish

    Movieish

  • Illustrated icon, Suburban

    Suburban drama

  • Illustrated icon, Book_About_Books

    Book about books

  • Illustrated icon, Mama_Drama

    Mama drama

Synopsis

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.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Neighbor's Secret.

The Neighbor's Secret

Chapter One

September

It all started that brilliantly sunny Thursday morning, with Janine and her gossip.

As the familiar green minivan cruised around the bend in the road, Annie considered flattening herself against the Jensens’ hedges. She truly appreciated Janine and everything that she did for the neighborhood, but sometimes, especially first thing in the morning, the woman could be a lot.

Like how now, Janine had pulled over to the side of the road with a screech, zipped down her window, leaned out her head, and excitedly flapped her hands in front of her face, like she’d taken a bite of a scalding-hot breakfast sandwich.

Gossip, Annie suspected, as she tugged the dog’s leash to coax her over to Janine’s car. Or worse, bragging. Janine’s daughter Katie was always achieving things, which was wonderful. In theory, Annie rooted for Katie—for all children—to succeed, but something about Janine’s presentation always caused a flash of panic within Annie: Should Hank and Laurel be composing oboe concertos? Why haven’t they written cookbooks for charity?

Annie would have to remind herself that Laurel’s grades were excellent, that Hank was a joy, that both were curious and kind people, and that people who bragged about their children were usually overcompensating for something.

“Did you hear about the vandal?” Janine asked. Her face was pink with excitement and there was a halo of frizz around her blond ringlets.

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Why I love it

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.

Member ratings (21,337)

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Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
What Does It Feel Like?
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
Honey
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
Jackpot Summer
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Again and Again
Evil Eye
Black Cake
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Someone Else’s Shoes
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
The Bad Muslim Discount
What Comes After
Olga Dies Dreaming
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
Monster in the Middle
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
Honey Girl
In Every Mirror She's Black
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Sankofa
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Love of My Life
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Wishing Game
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Little Fires Everywhere
The Music Shop
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
The Reckless Oath We Made
Dear Edward
When We Were Vikings
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
All Adults Here
Happy & You Know It
Friends and Strangers
The Comeback
True Story
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Chicken Sisters
The Prophets
In a Book Club Far Away
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Most Likely Club
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket