The Woman Next Door: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with dark and jaw-dropping twists Paperback – January 24, 2017

This book is written in alternating points of view from two neighbors, Hester and Melissa. Hester, an older widow with a dark secret, used to be very involved in Melissa life; practically a grandmother figure to Melissa's now teenage daughter. As Melissa's seemingly perfect life continues to flourish, she find less and less need for her older, strongly opinionated neighbor and begins to slowly push Hester out of her life. When secrets from Melissa's past come back to turn her plush life upside-down, Hester finds her opening to sneak back into Melissa's life.The Woman Next Door is certainly an amazing debut adult novel for Cass Green and I look forward to reading more from her as her writting style is intriguing and really draws the reader in. However, as much as I enjoyed this book I kept finding myself wanting just a bit more. The ending seemed a little rushed for such a great story and there were times that I found myself wishing something bigger would come out of it. Still, it had some good twists and I would recommend this book to any thriller/suspense/mystery readers.

****SPOILER ALERT****This novel was well-written and very enjoyable to read. The characters of Melissa and Hester were realistic and well-developed. As the plot of the novel progressed, the characters grew. I felt as if these two women were actual living beings, who matured as a result of their experiences. Well, not all of them matured. Hester started out as a murderer and a lunatic, and that's what she was at the end of the novel. She had a few moments of lucidity, when she became aware of her actions and was willing to admit to her crime of murdering her husband and Jamie. She was a despicable woman, full of lies and manipulations. Hester allowed Melissa to believe Melissa killed Jamie. It was only in one of her more lucid moments that she admitted to Melissa that she'd killed Jamie, not Melissa as Melissa had originally believed. She trapped Melissa in her lies so Melissa would be beholden to Hester for helping Melissa dump Jamie's body. The crazy woman (Hester) was so desperate for friendship and parenting that she created a web of lies to keep Melissa at her side. Hester abducted Amber because she believed Amber's mother Kerry was unfit to raise her. I ABHORRED Hester from the beginning of the novel. She was a psycho b**** whose lunacy went untreated. I was extremely pleased when Hester ended up in Holloway Women's Prison for the remainder of her life. Her admitting to her husband's murder was one of the three good things she did. The second one was telling Melissa she killed Jamie. The third was admitting she abducted Amber. I'm happy the author ended the novel as she did. Melissa grew as a woman when she packed her bag to run away (as she'd done all her life), then changed her mind and unpacked her bag. She realized that both her husband Mark and her daughter Tilley loved and needed her. She learned how strong she actually was, and that staying may be uncomfortable at first. But she had the tools to work on her relationships, and didn't need to run away.I've never read any novels by Cass Green until this novel. I plan on buying other novels by Ms. Green.

It took me many times, but I finally got to finish this book. The two main characters are very different, but interesting. Would’ve liked more information about one of the characters past. Overall, a decent read.

"Two women. Two dark secrets. The almost perfect murder." I was intrigued by this teaser on the cover. And I was hooked from chapter one. The juicy characterization of the two women in the story is fantastic.Hester and Melissa are next door neighbors. Apparently they were close at one time, but not so much for quite a while now. Melissa, the younger one, seems to have it all. She's very attractive, has a beautiful house and a husband and daughter. Hester is middle-aged, no husband (apparently she had one at one time, but <i>something</I> happened...), no children, and no friends.There's something "off" about Hester. She has secrets. She's pretty and judgemental toward everyone. Except Melissa. She seems to be obsessed with Melissa. They were once close, and she's determined to get back in Melissa's good graces. However, Hester makes Melissa uncomfortable, and she's avoided her strange neighbor whenever she can. But something strange is going on with Melissa also. Clearly, she's carrying secrets of her own. And then something happens that bring the two women together, for better or for worse...As I read the pages, I felt as if the author was dangling a carrot in front of me. I enjoyed this psychological thriller very much, although I thought the ending fizzled a bit. Am definitely interested in reading another book by this author.Four stars, and then some.

This is an unusual narrative, told from each of the main character’s points of view. The personalities of these two women are drawn out very well and as the story went along, I felt I knew about both women in depth. This made it easier to understand their somewhat unusual motivations. Even though this is a dark story, it was not rare to see they subtle humor bubbling up under the serious surface. There are several twists and turns that are difficult to see coming which makes the story fun. I liked the suspense and the ways the characters dealt with one another. For me, the one negative was a part of the story that went on for almost too long that concerned logistics and quite a detailed drive. I don’t want to give any spoilers away but some readers will know what I mean. That aside, the book was well worth my time as I enjoyed the uniqueness of it.In this, her first adult novel, as well as in her second, the ending is packaged up very tidily and then tied with a bow on top. In her next book, I hope the ending is not quite so tidy. It would give the story more of a sense of reality because life’s solutions to situations are not usually so neatly packaged.I am looking forward to reading another novel by this very talented author!

nos book was very good kept me on the edge of my seat at times I could not put it down

Une histoire décalée et bien menée qui allie humour et contexte socio-culturel anglais pour une bonne lecture divertissante et une fin inattendue

This was brilliant but a couple of whopping errors cost it the 5* !! Such a pity but they were mistakes that any proper editor should've noticed if I spotted them.It was a clever story and you had to wonder at these two madzers ending up living next-door to each other. For me, both women were more than a bit unhinged, although both from differing generations and backgrounds. There were a lot of surprises throughout and I really enjoyed it. I was up into the early hours reading as I was dying to know what happened. For some of it I lived it in real time along with them as a large portion took place in the space of one day, the time it took me to read about the same 24 hours. Some behaviour in this was shocking to me although at times it did make me giggle. I actually laughed aloud when Hester mentioned rigor mortis in the motorway service station. That really tickled me. However, at its heart it is quite a sad story as well, really. I preferred Hester to Melissa, she held a lot of the same world views I do, although I found I worried more about Bertie than any other character !!Even in the chapter headings' list, it's all laid out well till the chapter titled 'Five Months LaterMELISSA'. HOW that got past any self-respecting editor or proofreader is beyond me. The remainder of the titles weren't written all in capitals at all so it smacks you in the face. So pretty sloppy from the word go. She has also gone with Americanised (not Americanized) spellings throughout so we were treated to patronizing, anaesthetized and materialize, etc. Moniker is not spelt monica (ouch) nor sanitary wear as ware. Sleepover needed a space in the context it was written as well. Ladies needed an apostrophe and "Yes, a grandma Jamie" needed another comma to make proper sense.Now the real whoppers....."I'm sick, Tams"......would be fine and dandy IF there was a character called Tams or Tamsin in the story but the girl she was speaking to was called bloody Saskia !! Then Amber is described as a perfectly adequate mother when Amber is the child !! Getting your own characters' names wrong is a massive no-no for me.....unforgiveable.I know that with some proper tidying up by the publisher this would easily make 5* so I hope in any revision they sort these sloppy mistakes out. I'll be trying her other book for sure.(I couldn't find what RoNA stands for at the end, in the About The Author section. Google couldn't even enlighten me there.)

oltre ad essere poco convincente, specialmente nella sua parte finale, ho trovato il libro noioso, poco probabile e poco avvincente.

This is not really a "dark and twisty" psychological thriller at all. It is an interesting book with a slightly predictable twist... And, as the blurb says, this book is, indeed, very, very inspired by 'Notes on a Scandal' (which, btw, is BRILLIANT).. the book's ending is a bit of a damp squib.. but it is a moderately interesting book otherwise.