A new job. A new home. A new start.
It’s all Anna wants.
But in a closed rural community, strange traditions and a suspicion of outsiders mean everything is not as it seems.
Three teenage girls have vanished at the annual Gathering as they reach their sixteenth birthday.
No one seems to be investigating.
And a fourth girl begs Anna for help, fearing that she will be next to disappear.
Everyone has secrets.
Anna is watching everyone.
But who is watching Anna?
An unpredictable and wild page-turner, with shocks, surprises and a killer twist for a finale.
Book Info: Print length: 329 pages. Publisher: Orion. Publication Date: 7 Nov 2024
My Thoughts:
I absolutely LOVE Sharon Bolton’s books and was really excited to get a copy of The Neighbour’s Secret from Netgalley.
Anna has just moved to St Alban’s Chapel, a relatively quiet and remote village in the Lake District to open up a bakery and escape her past. However, it soon becomes apparent that not all is what it seems, when strange things start happening during the annual festival run by church. Known as The Gathering, families from all over the UK descend on this little village for a strange and extremely secretive ceremony which centres around the teenager churchgoers.
When a young girl and her mother visit Anna’s bakery it becomes clear the girl is in distress and potentially danger too and Anna starts to look into The Gathering in more detail and becomes alarmed to learn that 3 girls have gone missing over the last 3 years during the ceremonies
The story is mainly narrated by Anna’s neighbour who lives in the middle of the 3 terraced house and has an indepth knowledge of the villagers and their strange traditions. Throughout the book, it’s obvious the main narrator doesn’t like Anna very much but quickly finds themselves getting involved in the investigation and trying to help the young girl,
There is also a dual time frame story featuring a rather disturbed young man who is undergoing therapy having had a violent and frenzied attack on a school teacher.
Slowly and cleverly the two stories begin to merge together and the reader is led on a twisty and twisted tale of secrets, murder and obsession.
I absolutely loved this book. There is one particular OMG twist which I absolutely did not see coming and turned the entire story on it’s head for me personally.
