In much of domestic suspense, the scary stuff happens within the same home. It’s husband versus wife, wife versus husband, and sometimes, the kids have a role, too. But in these suspense novels, it’s the lovely neighbors next door, down the street, or even the entire community you better watch out for. No matter how perfect the neighborhood seems, there’s trouble close by.
In my latest, SOMEBODY’S HOME, Julie Jones and her daughter are starting over, and she’s purchased a lovely home across town, miles away from the oceanfront mansion where she’s lived in a loveless marriage. The only problem: the sellers have moved to a different town, but they’ve left someone behind in the carriage house. Only a small yard separates Julie and her daughter from the danger out back.
So maybe your neighbors aren’t who you think they are. Or maybe you aren’t? It’s all a little bit terrifying to think about.
Lisa Jewell, Watching You
Imagine you’re back home in your wealthy English town after working four years abroad and until you find a place of your own, you and your husband are crashing in your brother’s spare room when you meet the man next door. He’s gorgeous, the head teacher at a local school. You find yourself watching him, too much. And then you realize someone is Watching You. Lisa Jewell’s bone-chilling community suspense is the essence of dangerous neighbors.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, The First To Lie
In Hank Phillippi Ryan’s The First To Lie two smart women, apartment dwellers who live next-door to each other face off in a high stakes psychological cat and mouse game to prove their truth about a devastating childhood betrayal. But which one is the cat, and which one is the mouse? And why are they neighbors?
David Bell, Bring Her Home
David Bell creates a suburban neighborhood where no one knows what’s really happening behind drawn blinds in Bring Her Home. When two teenage girls disappear, every neighbor is a suspect in what is a father’s worst nightmare.
Alissa Cole, When No One Is Watching
A Brooklyn neighborhood is the setting for When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole where revitalization takes on a sinister new meaning. Sydney Green wants to hold onto her beloved neighborhood’s past, and present. Her neighbor Theo reluctantly joins her quest, and what they discover about where their neighbors have gone when gentrification pushes them out is terrifying.
Hannah Mary McKinnon, Never Coming Home
Never Coming Home by Hannah Mary McKinnon involves a perfectly evil husband, Lucas, who believes he’s gotten away with killing his wife to inherit her sizeable fortune. He covered every track, he thought, until a cryptic note appears on his doorstep. Someone is onto him. Is it someone next door?
Samantha Bailey, Watch Out For Her
Sarah and her husband and son have settled into a friendly suburb where the neighbors are always watching out for each other, and for danger. But, when she finds hidden cameras in her new home, she wonders if the past has caught up to her and who is watching her now. Watch Out For Her by Samantha Bailey is a creepy neighborhood at its finest.
Sally Hepworth, The Family Next Door
Sally Hepworth is the queen of idyllic neighborhoods filled with spooky secrets. In The Family Next Door, when a new woman named Isabelle moves in next door to Essie, everything begins to unravel as her presence brings shocking secrets to life. Close those blinds, Essie.
Heather Gudenkauf, The Overnight Guest
But it’s not only the suburbs where dangerous neighbors reside. In Heather Gudenkauf’s latest, The Overnight Guest, true crime writer Wylie Lark is snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her next book. Only problem is she picked a house where two people were murdered in cold blood decades earlier, and the snowstorm is worsening. At least she doesn’t have to worry about the neighbors, or does she? She does. When she discovers a small child outside alone in the snow, it becomes clear the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought.
Kerry Lonsdale, No More Words
Secrets abound in Kerry Lonsdale’s No More Words which centers around a young woman running away from home. Sixteen and pregnant, she never returns, but her son does. This story about three dysfunctional siblings and their secrets revolves around what it means to be family, and what it means to be home. And what it means when your parents are the scary neighbors.
Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena is, of course, one of the best examples of why you shouldn’t go to a dinner party next door, especially when there are too many secrets between you. This suspense about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors is a classic.
Mary Kubica, The Other Mrs.
It’s never great to be the new family in a small, close-knit Maine town, especially when your neighbor is found dead in her home. In this twisty whodunnit, the more Sadie Foust delves into what happened that deadly night when Morgan Baines died, the more Sadie’s own secrets are revealed. The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica is a scary, fast-paced made-for and coming to Netflix, neighbor danger story.
Robyn Harding, The Perfect Family
It’s also never good to be the envy of the neighbors, but that’s the problem Viv and Thomas Alder face with their perfect children and beautifully restored home. The Perfect Family by Robyn Harding starts there, but of course, after their porch is pelted with eggs, things get much worse because everyone in the Alder family is keeping a secret, not just from their neighbors, but from each other.
Kimberly Belle, My Darling Husband
One of the most terrifying things imaginable happens to a wealthy family living in the beautiful Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta in Kimberly Belle’s latest, My Darling Husband, when Jade Lasky and her two young children are taken hostage by a masked home invader. What or who led danger to this perfect family’s doorstep, and how long has the home invader been watching them? Yikes.
J.T. Ellison, Lie to Me
In Lie to Me by J. T. Ellison perfect literary couple Sutton and Ethan Montclair’s life unravels when Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her, much to the glee of the neighborhood gossips, friends, and the news media. When you build a life on lies, someone will discover the truth. And the whole neighborhood can’t wait to talk about it.
Megan Miranda, Such a Quiet Place
If you’re looking for a riveting mystery set in a perfect, close-knit neighborhood, Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda introduces you to Hollow’s Edge. Only problem is, the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett has ruined the neighborhood’s peaceful reputation. Residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes. And then the alleged murderer, Ruby, strolls back into the neighborhood and into Harper Nash’s home. Expect more than the usual shocking twists in this novel where everyone in the neighborhood is paranoid, and they should be.
Catherine McKenzie, Fractured
The lovely Mount Adams district of Cincinnati is the neighborhood setting of Fractured by Catherine McKenzie. Julie Prentice and her family don’t know anyone in town but meets and befriends her neighbor John Dunbar. What she thinks is a new friendship could mean her neighbors are out to get her, too. As tensions in the neighborhood rise, new friends turn to enemies and the results are deadly.
Georgina Cross, The Stepdaughter
In The Stepdaughter by Georgina Cross, our first-person protagonist wants you to think perhaps a neighbor is responsible for the disappearance of her husband’s daughter who disappeared when she was making lasagna. But are the secrets closer to home?
Samantha Downing, My Lovely Wife
Sometimes, the perfect suburban family, your neighbors in your pristine gated community, are the predators, as is the case in My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing. Never a good idea to borrow a cup of sugar from serial killers.
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