Author: Sally Hepworth
ISBN: 9781760552176
RRP: $29.99
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Copy: Courtesy of the Publisher
Sally Hepworth is an author I have grown to love. We have featured all her novels here at Beauty and Lace, book clubbing more than not. I always get excited knowing that there’s a new novel coming because Hepworth tackles the tricky topics with insight and sensitivity. The Family Next Door is another story tackling heavy subject matter but I think there was a larger element of mystery here, I was certainly left guessing.
The Family Next Door is set in a suburban Melbourne street, a family oriented area that is quiet and peaceful. The story is told by a cast of female characters living on the street, a street where everyone knows each other but no-one is really a friend. They wave and check in politely, look out for gardens when people are away but there are no real friendships; no support network.
Isabelle moves into the street and sets tongues wagging because a single woman is a rare occurrence in their street, and though she’s friendly she seems to know a lot more than she should.
Essie, Fran and Ange all seem to have enviable lives. They have great husbands, all with very different skill sets and winning husbandly traits. They have children and are trying to get by the best way they can. It isn’t until we get to know their behind-closed-doors lives that we realise how deceiving looks can really be.
The story is told in alternating (not evenly) chapters focused on Essie, Fran, Ange, Isabelle and Essie’s mum Barbara. This is when we start to learn about all the things going on in these women’s lives, that their neighbours are unaware of.
Isabelle has a reason for moving to Pleasant Court and we discover early that she’s looking for someone; as the story unfolded I came up with theory after theory about who she was looking for and why, and I was wrong every time.
The secrets lurking in the Pleasant Court houses left me wondering how this would all come together and I really had no idea. Nothing that I imagined was even close and that was a great thing. Hepworth wove an intriguing and heartbreaking story from the lives on Pleasant Court and by the close of the story she had outed the secrets and the recovery phase was well underway.
The Family Next Door asks us how well we really know our neighbours, and if we could change things by reaching out and really checking in. We all have things going on in our lives but if we opened ourselves to helping those close to us would we all reap the benefits.
Essie, Fran and Ange live in close proximity and see each other regularly but they don’t really catch up and it seems, as we get to know them, that they don’t really have anyone they can properly catch up and offload to which leaves them feeling pretty isolated with their secrets and struggling with how to work through them. This sense of isolation can exacerbate small issues and make them much larger, I know this from personal experience, so imagine how much more difficult that makes dealing with large issues.
Sally Hepworth tackles all the big ones in marriage in The Family Next Door from financial issues to trust, fidelity, depression, post-natal depression, guilt, postpartum psychosis and commitment phobia. Two of these marriages look really amazing from the outside and even Essie and Ben have an enviable relationship, though the others know about that scary time that Essie left her baby in the park and returned home.
I love the intricate way that Hepworth has woven all of the strands of this story together, bringing us to a heart-warming conclusion after some pretty serious heartbreak. The loose ends are tied up and everyone gets a resolution to their issues, even if it’s not always the way we wanted it to turn out.
The characters are real and relatable, I’m sure most of us will empathise with at least one of them even if they didn’t always behave in a way we would expect. A gripping spotlight on the issues that many of us face, and often can’t bring ourselves to talk about. A book I would wholeheartedly recommend.
Thank you Sally Hepworth and Pan Macmillan for an emotionally engaging, sensitive and insightful look at love, life and neighbourhoods.
The Family Next Door is book #9 for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2018.
You can follow Sally Hepworth on Facebook, her Website and Twitter.
The Family Next Door is published by Pan Macmillan and is available now through Angus & Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and where all good books are sold.
Thanks to Pan Macmillan 15 of our Beauty and Lace Club Members will be reading The Family Next Door so please be aware there may be spoilers in the comments below.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
I loved every page of this book and read it fast, I struggled to put it down.
This is a story about the families on Pleasant Court who seem quite together…but who knows what goes on behind closed doors.
I enjoyed every character in this book, normally there’s someone who I don’t like in a book but this one shows just how complex people are and that there is sometimes a grey area. Each family was interesting and I couldn’t wait to get to the juicy stuff, you can feel it coming from the beginning.
This book would appeal to a wide audience, from mother’s with young children to grandparents and anyone in between really.
5/5 Stars from me. Thanks so much for this book club book, this one will stay with me for a long time.
What an amazing story! It twists and turns and just when you think you’ve pinned it down, it twists again.
Following the stories of various suburban women and their families, the author weaves an intriguing tale that gripped me from the first page. I found the characters, and their situations, to be authentic and very relatable. The author demonstrated that there is good and bad in everyone and often the lives that seem to be the most perfect are anything but. There were several late nights as I found it difficult to put the book down.
This is the first book of Sally Hepworth’s that I have read but I definitely want to read more of her work. A huge thank you must go to Beauty & Lace Book Club and Pan McMillan for choosing me to read and honestly review this book.
I loved this book we got to the bottom of their troubles it all made sense in the end.
They were people hurting from decisions that they had no control of in the begin of their life.
A good read.
An intriguing read right from the start. Each chapter left you wondering who was going to lose control of their seemingly comfortable life. Not only does Isabelle moving to Pleasant Court make you wonder who she is and where this is going to lead and with which neighbour but they all have that one “elephant “ in the room.
A series of events and the story evolves.
I could not put this book down!
Absolutely enjoyed reading Thefamily next door. I couldn’t put it down from the moment I read the first chapter through to the last page.
It had me following along to everyone’s story lines and what is happening behind your neighbours closed doors.
Definitely recommend this book to everyone who is looking for something to read.
I loved this book. I would describe it as a more realistic, Australian version of “Desperate Housewives”
I felt like any of the women could live next door to me
This book tells of the everyday comings and goings of the women in the street and their families.
It is written in an easy to read, comfortable style. As I read this book, I knew something was coming, and was sure I knew how it would pan out
I was wrong
I really enjoyed reading this book and will certainly look out for other works by Sally Hepworth
A must read if you want a book that discusses the big issues in a thought provoking but enjoyable way
The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth is a story of drama and mystery in Pleasant Court in suburban Melbourne. This story kept me thinking what really the mystery is, and every time I thought I knew the mystery, I was proven wrong and had to rethink.
The story follows the ups and downs of mothers in Pleasant Court, Essie, Fran and Ange, who are all married, with children and have hidden stories from their friends and families, but then again who doesn’t.
Then there’s Isabella who doesn’t fit into the makeup of the other families in Pleasant Court, she is single, and has no children. She rents where the other families own their homes. So, who or what is she looking for in Pleasant Court?
The characters are real and easily relatable to many of our own life experiences, and don’t necessarily behave in ways that we would think would be expected of families. The story goes into areas of our lives that we would not always want to discuss and talk about to the Family Next Door or any of our neighbours.
A great read and I look forward to reading more books by Sally Hepworth.
What an interesting read. The twists in the story kept you reading & trying to guess the plot.
Outside the house they all seemed like their lives were perfect but inside the walls of their home things were unravelling & everything was not as it seemed.
Looking forward to reading more by Sally Hepworth
Sally Hepworth has really captured my interest with this book. Do you really know your neighbors? A book full of twists and turns, What starts out as a story of a young woman having a baby and facing post natal depression and how her loving family helps her through this stage in life…. covering the normal life in a street full of friends and family. Some of the other characters play a part in the storyline of unfaithful activities in their own marriages gives a little more depth to the story making you wonder about the title – The Family Next Door.
The story is written in a way that has you wondering about the new neighbor and how they will fit into the story. There are short breaks from the story to a far away time of a young woman facing the loss of a baby and again you wonder which character this is. The story unfolds in such a way that will leave you breathless about the pain and what people are actually capable of in the face of tragedy.
Well rounded story that I felt captured the fear and pain of each characters story and how they ended up where they are today. I liked the twist of who this mystery woman was and I feel the ending captured and finished each of the characters story well.
Thank you for a wonderful read.
Congratulations Sally Hepworth on what I believe to be a successful novel.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and loved the story line.
You just never really know your neighbours, just when you think you do something like Pleasant Court arises. I loved the many different personalities and characters. I did not figure out the ending at all, usually good at these things.
Wow ! The things people do for love……
Thank you to Beauty and Lace for yet another successful read.