The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson

Harriet and her husband, Oliver, reside in the prestigious enclave of Prospect Close. They have three daughters Tess and Tilly and a 6-month-old Lucy. Oliver is a banker and works out of town during the week. Harriet owns a kids' clothing business.

Harriet suspects her husband is having an affair. The book is told by two POV Harriet and the Mistress. Harriet is stressed and decides she needs a nanny to help take care of her kids. Well one of the kids is taken from the park. Lucy the 6 month old was the one stolen.

This is the premise of the story basically but to me this book just fell flat the characters where not as developed as I thought they should be. Also for being a thriller there was no twists it was straight forward. You do find out that their are some secrets that get revealed and the betrayal.

This is the first time reading from this author the book just needs a little more work. Narrated by Eilidh Beaton which did not do a good job with the children voices. I would recommend this thriller to people who enjoy straight forward thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookcuture Audio for a free audio copy of The Mistress Next Door for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions I expressed in this review are my own.

The Mistress Next Door started out promising for me. However as the book continued I felt it becoming a bit disjointed and slow. It wasn’t until the end that I saw where the author was going. I felt like the plot had potential but ultimately it was a bit of a letdown for me.

5 out of 5 for this audiobook!!!
Very well written & good character development and suspense leading up was also good!!! It was a faster paced book/definite page turner!!

A domestic thriller that kept me guessing and engaged the whole time. Harriett knows someone is out to get her (she has found threatening notes) but when her daughter goes missing briefly, it steps up a notch. Has it got to do with her secret from the past?

There are plenty of 'suspects', secrets, gossip, affairs, intrigue, likeable and unlikeable characters in this story and I didn't pick it until the end. Definitely worth the read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio version of this book for my honest opinion.

This was the perfect thriller to listen to. You’re hooked right from the beginning and don’t want to stop. I love a good domestic thriller and this ticked all the boxes!

Wowza... this book started out with a bang. A child is kidnapped from a playground while the mother was distracted. The child is eventually recovered, and that sets the wheels in motion for a story full of suspense at a fast pace. I took a star off because I wasn't crazy about the ending.

This was a psychological thriller set in a cul de sac, so where everyone seems to know each other and nothing is private. I can imagine this can seem claustrophobic and especially scary when you then don't know who it is you cannot trust. I would say there are basically two stories interwoven here... there's the story of Harriet's daughter going missing and threats, related to her past and then there is her troubled marriage. Harriet feels the need to deal with all the drama alone as her husband Oliver doesn't know about her past and she has serious suspicions that her husband is being unfaithful.

Overall I really enjoyed this story, helped by great narration and I wanted to know who was behind the threats, would it all be okay and would their marriage surviver everything?

This was my first book by Lesley Sanderson but I would definitely be open to reading more or better yet listening to them especially if she chooses the same narrator.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookcouture Audio for The Mistress Next Door.
I enjoyed this audiobook and loved the narrator's accent. There was the appropriate amount of characters introduced and it wasn't difficult to keep track of them. This was definitely a quick flowing book on audio. I think my favorite character in this book was Gabby.
Harriet and Oliver are married with three children, living in a suburb where Harriet doesn't want to be. She wants to move to the county to raise her kids in a quiet, safe environment. However, Oliver doesn't agree and wants to stay where they are. They have a history of infidelity in their marriage and Harriet has an inkling that Oliver is cheating again. So much of the book focuses on finding out who the mistress is, and when it is finally revealed, it definitely is a little twist. This book was about finding a new nanny, a missing child, a well-hidden secret from 20 years ago, revenge, infidelity, and who can be trusted in their small community..
This book had so many different topics, but I feel like some of the big situations that they brought up took away from the main twist at the end of the book. I just felt there were too many moving parts to this book and although we did get to see how everything tied in together at the end, I felt it just took too long to get there, especially for the format of audiobook.
I did not love the ending, this was another book where there is a "happy-ish ending" and there are no repercussions for people's actions. It just wasn't satisfying to me and I felt that it was wrapped up to neatly.
The Mistress Next Door was published on 2/15/23!

This one kept me intrigued - trying to figure out which of the characters was "the mistress". At certain points during the book, I had reason to believe almost any of them were the mistress, which is a positive for the authors writing.

However, it did take me a while to figure out who all the characters were, since there were so many of them introduced straight from the beginning. And it did feel fairly repetitive at times. The ending/reveal did feel a bit flat and maybe a bit predictable. But mostly throughout the story I just wanted to punch the husband in the face for being such a jerk to his wife.

Overall though, I liked it and would recommend it.

Tilly has gone missing. Harriet looks away for a brief second and she is gone. She is found a short time later and everyone thinks Harriet’s child just wandered off. But Harriet knows there is more. She keeps getting these strange notes threatening her with her past and her secrets.

Ok, before we get started there are just a few issues, and yes I did enjoy the book. But, I did not like the narrator’s voice for the child. Luckily the child did not speak very much. Then there is Oliver. I was not a big fan of this man on several levels. But, these are minor issues and they are MY issues. Just some thoughts that stuck with me throughout listening to this novel.

Harriet really tries to keep it together. I struggled right along with her. But she has some big secrets herself that she is not sharing. Then she discovers the receipt in Oliver’s jacket and her world starts to slowly disintegrate. Then it totally explodes and her past comes out.

I really enjoyed how this story unfolded. And I loved guessing about Harriet’s past. (And yes, I guessed most of it!). This is a pretty entertaining mystery with a big ole twist at the end!

Need a good novel with very good secrets…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

The Mistress Next Door is an intriguing mystery - Harriet is in constant fear that her secret will catch up with her. When her daughter goes missing and she starts receiving threatening letters, she has to face her past to save herself and her family.

This was an ok read. It was entertaining enough to keep me reading and the ending was a surprise in terms of who the mistress was. However I also found the ending a bit of an anti climax. There was no real suspense and it felt like it was over before it began. Just when I thought the action was about to start it just fizzled out. It was my first book by this author and I'd read another by her as I still enjoyed it overall. I listened to it on audio and it was a good book to keep me occupied whilst having to do other things.

I enjoyed this story very much. I didn’t see some of the twists coming. Keep me engrossed throughout. The narrator was good too. .

DNF at 58%

I really tried to finish this but it is too slow moving/repetitive and the main character is both annoying and unlikable. Her constant lack of self esteem and putting herself down is particularly grating. The way her husband walks all over her and tears her like a doormat is tough to read. The unknown mistress is equally boring and I find I don’t care about anyone or learning any of the « mysteries » sorry!!

Still a DNF for me. Thought trying the audio book would help but it didn’t. It just didn’t pull me in like I’d hoped it would. Thank you for the opportunity anyways.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨ (31/2 stars)
This book is about Harriet and her past creeping into her presence, her crumbling married life with her husband Oliver and how the secrets of her past threaten the well-being of her twin daughters Tilly and Tess and her six-month-old daughter Lucy.

This domestic thriller has a few intriguing elements. The Psychological thriller part is well-written. Sometimes story feels dragged
Harriet's character development takes all the author’s efforts while other character arcs feel underdeveloped. Though the author keeps Oliver in the frame throughout the plot. It had a lot of potentials. You can count it as a slow burn.

The end twist was sudden and unexpected. It's once a reading book. If you don't tend to overanalyze the plot you’ll enjoy reading/listening it.
The narrator has a distinct way to create the world around Prospect close. Overall it is a good domestic psychological thriller and I would very much recommend it.

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝙽𝚎𝚝𝙶𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝙰𝙻𝙲 𝚒𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠

[this review will be posted on the Instagram handle ( @talesofthelibrary) tomorrow morning 21/Feb. ]

The synopsis of this book was intriguing and the prologue gave it an immediate boost of excitement, yet after that this book sorta lost me.

The dual timelines were confusing to say the least, mainly because there were so many of them. A straight forward domestic thriller would have been perfect yet too many other sideline stories kept competing for attention.

I will say that the ending was not what I expected, so that was all a surprised. Yet still a little lack luster, like the author was just trying to wrap things up.

Narrative did a great job though.

Thank you to NetGalley for this early release audiobook that was released February 15, 2023.

Fairly standard domestic suspense territory. In the land of domestic suspense, all men are slimy cheating creeps and women are all potential rivals. I am so glad I live in a different world.

“The Mistress Next Door” featured a very claustrophobic housing development at the center of the story. That was probably my favorite aspect of this story that at least made it special. The ending was ludicrous and just shy of awful. My version was narrated— she did a nice job with the different British accents.

In all, the story clipped along well at a brisk pace, and this book got the job done. Thank you to #netgalley #bookouture and #lesleysanderson for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

Harriet is on edge after one of her twins went missing briefly while playing in the park. On top of her fear over her children she finds clues that her husband, Oliver, has been cheating on her- again.
Threatening notes and a decades old secret round out Harriet's troubles. She suspects a neighbor of being involved with Oliver- but who knows Her own secret? And can she escape the past?

The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson

Thank you NetGalley, Lesley Sanderson, and Bookouture (audio) for providing an ARC for my honest review.
This book was off to a great start, very high adrenilin, heartracing including leaving the reader on the edge of her seat.
As the story opens with Harriet experiencing a horrific ordeal surrounding one of her twins being snatched up from the playground, Harriet hits a high level of panic when she nor the police are able to reach her husband Oliver who is on a business trip.

Oliver, Harriet's rock, was everything to her, but recently he appears to be acting peculiar and not as attentive to his family. In addition to the fright of her daughter being snatched, Harriet has begun to receive threatening notes; these notes all have an implication that the author of the notes is aware of a secret from Harriet's past.

The story dragged a bit, even with the author's attempt to fully develop Harriet's character, the character development did not accelerate the plot and barely drove the plot. Though this book had great potential and was not all bad, it was difficult to get into the characters and overall connect with the plot.

There seemingly was. a struggle with competing plots vs sub plots which exposed the lack of conflict for this novel to have fully been suspensful. It appeared Harriet's past took up most of the space for the plot of this book, which left a smaller amount of space to connect to the predicted theme of infidelity, Though the author allowed Oliver to remain present throughout the book, Oliver's character was underdeveloped, and underwhelming.

Overall, a good attempt at suspense/thriller, but high-level drama at best. I would be interested in reading additioanl works of Ms. Lesley Sanderson in the near future. This book easily is a 3 1/2 stars, but there are no half of stars. This novel receives a solid 3 stars.

I do recommend this as the writing is easy to navigate.