The Good Neighbour by Beth Miller

After living next to the neighbours from hell, Minette is overjoyed when Cath and her two children move in next door. Cath soon becomes her confidante, a kindred spirit, even her daughter’s babysitter. But Cath keeps herself unusually guarded and is reluctant to speak of her past. And when Minette witnesses something unspeakable, she begins to question whether she really knows her new friend at all…

The Good Neighbour is the first book I have read by Beth Miller so I wasn’t sure what to expect but after reading the synopsis it sounded like it was going to be a gripping tense read full of secrets so I couldn’t wait to start.

Single mum Cath has just moved into the house next to Minette. After living next door to neighbours from hell Minette was relieved to meet her new neighbour and her children and before she knew it a firm friendship was starting to blossom.

But when Minette see’s something that shocks her to the core and she confronts Cath, cracks soon form in their friendship. Cath obviously has sinister secrets kept close to her chest but will Minette be able to get to the bottom of them?

Beth Miller has such an easy flow to her writing and she creates a remarkable air of suspicion that keeps the reader on their guard the whole way through. The book is told from multiple characters points of view which helped to hold my attention as we begin to build a picture of the characters and the situation through the snippets we see from each characters eyes.

The one problem I had with this book was the situation with Minette and Liam, I found it very strange, it was so easily accepted and quickly developed and just didn't seem to flow with the rest of the storyline. As the storyline progressed it did reveal that there was a reason to have this in the book but it just didn’t work for me and this was what lost the half star for me. Parts of the storyline were predictable but these were perfectly balanced by the amount of suspense that was also created.

Overall this was a good read full of secrets, lie, deceit and also covers mental health and infidelity too. I will definitely pick up another book by Beth Miller as I really enjoyed her writing style.

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