Kirstie Rawlings is jolted awake by a child crying. Racing upstairs to check on her new-born, she is plunged into every parents’ worst nightmare. She hears an unknown voice in the baby monitor, saying: ‘Let’s take the child – and go.’
Is someone trying to steal her little girl?
In the bedroom, her daughter is safe asleep in her cot. Is the voice coming from a nearby house? But there aren’t any other children living on her quiet country road…
The police don't believe her. And neither does her husband.
Kirstie knows something isn’t right. She thought she could trust her neighbours, now she isn’t sure. As she unravels the secrets of the people living on her street, Kirstie’s perfect life begins to fall apart.
Because someone is hiding a terrible lie. And they will do anything to stop Kirstie uncovering the truth. But is the danger closer to home than she thinks?
I'd like to thank Kim at Bookouture for inviting me to part of this blog tour and for my copy of The Child Next Door which I received via NetGalley.
Shalini Boland is another new author to me so when I was approached to review her latest book I didn't hesitate to say yes to reading, and having literally read The Child Next Door in a single sitting it was a decision I don't regret. As soon as I turned on my Kindle I was sucked right in as the creepy undertone and tension built up as I swiped through pages, sometimes a bit too keen!
From the moment Kirstie heard a voice over the baby monitor she struggled to get others to believe what she had heard, including her husband Dom, and that she's not going crazy and hearing things that aren't there so she just needs to prove it. But who will believe her if her closest friends and family don't?
I'm not normally a fan of multiple characters in a storyline but in this instance it worked as you needed to explore the relationships between them all, to see their dynamics through Kirstie's eyes. Every friend and neighbour becomes a suspect and it's true what they say, you don't really know what's going on behind closed doors and there's certainly many a secret to be found in this cul de sac...
The Child Next Door really was an intense, page turner of a read with so many twists and red herrings to throw the reader completely off course. Every time I thought I had figured things out, something else would come along and put a spanner in that theory. This was certainly one book that did live up to it's promise of a twist, even if I'm not a fan of these type of taglines as I as a reader like to be surprised and uncover them naturally without constantly being on the look out for the promised twist.
And all I can say about that epilogue is... wow I'm glad I'm not living next door!
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