The Secret Next Door by Rebecca Taylor

When Alyson, her husband Justin and their young son Andrew move into the exclusive neighborhood known as The Enclave, she thinks they have finally made it! Although a bit out of their price range, she finally convinced her skeptical husband that it would be well worth the cost. Andrew would be getting the best education in the safest neighborhood with wonderful friendly and affluent neighbors.

But as so many know, no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors. The outside can sometimes be the facade needed to cover-up the inside strain and turmoil. Nearby residence can be jealous of what others have. Both monetarily, emotionally and physically.

Take Bonnie Sloan. She is running for political office. She has one son who will be going off to Yale, another son in middle school and a daughter in kindergarten. They are the family everyone looks up to. But quietly, behind closed doors their lives are falling apart. Her husband, who took over his family’s business has basically bankrupted them by making poor business decisions. Their two boys do not get along at all and have horrible physical altercations. And now the only hope for the Sloan family to financially survive is if a new development is built next to their beautiful neighborhood. This has divided residence.

So when Alyson gets invited to attend the exclusive neighborhood book club she jumps at the chance. Her new friend Gabby has been able to wrangle the invitation. Once there, as the women gossip about all the neighbors including her, she begins to drink too much. Alyson wakes up the next morning in her bathroom unable to recall anything from the previous night. Her husband who is under great pressure to figure out how to pay for this house they can’t afford has had enough. He begins to distance himself from his wife. That’s when Alyson’s life truly begins to fall apart.

That morning as Alyson is nursing a hangover, a neighborhood child was found on the road killed the night before. Her husband begins to sleep in his man cave which was her selling point to him when they bought the house. He also locks its door. Her son who she has perhaps pampered a bit too much suddenly has developed issues at school. He can’t keep up with the work in class and has been shown to anger easily.

As the neighborhood speculates on who killed the child, they begin to deliberate whether Alyson’s family is perhaps too unrefined for the beloved community. Alyson is grateful she has Gabby to lean on as her marriage begins to falls apart and her son is ostracized. She is sure once they figure out what happened to the dead child everything else will return to normal. But she is stunned at the contempt her neighbors suddenly have for her family.

But people with too many secrets, including her own husband, always try to find someone else worse than them, don’t they? What will normal ever look like? And the shocking ending will send ripples around the neighborhood with lives changed forever. Who will recover from their secrets? More importantly, who will not?

A palpitating page turner!

Thank you #NetGalley #SourcebooksLandmark #RebeccaTaylor #TheSecretNextDoor for the advanced copy.