The year of 1992 was quite an eventful one for Abby: first is the death
of her beloved younger brother Tom; followed by meeting her husband
Nate at a crash site. Years later, just as Abby and Nate have settled
quietly into suburbs with a teenage daughter, another family moves in;
a man, woman, and a teenage son. The man, however, happens to be
Abby's true love: Liam. As the neighbors begin to interact with one
another, and attraction between Liam and Abby becomes rekindled,
secrets, old and new are uncovered and the story quickly hurls towards
an explosive conclusion.
Very often when it comes to domestic suspense, the threat is often of
the past in the form of a person, or else the threat is the person and
what they dare to hold over another character in terms of life and
death. In THE NEIGHBORS by
Hannah Mary McKinnon, the threat comes more from memories and the
power they hold over Abby, Nate and Liam, as well as what secrets will
come out. In other words, there are no literal life and death secrets.
Having said that, I often wished to see more interactions between the
neighbors so more can be added to the story, and would have wanted
for Liam's wife to have a bigger role in THE NEIGHBORS
If you are seeking a story that is similar to the current trend of
domestic suspense novels, as well as a story that explores the
forbidden paths and where secrets can turn from innocent to deadly,
then THE NEIGHBORS
Abby looks forward to meeting the family who just moved
in across the street—until she realizes they’re the one
couple who could expose her deepest secrets
After a night of fun back in 1992, Abby is responsible
for a car crash that kills her beloved brother. It’s a
mistake she can never forgive, so she pushes away Liam,
the man she loves most, knowing that he would eventually
hate her for what she’s done, the same way she hates
herself.
Twenty years later, Abby’s husband, Nate, is also living
with a deep sense of guilt. He was the driver who first
came upon the scene of Abby’s accident, the man who
pulled her to safety before the car erupted in flames—the
man who could not save her brother in time. It’s this
guilt, this regret, that binds them together. They
understand each other. Or so Nate believes.
In a strange twist of fate, Liam moves into the
neighborhood with his own family, releasing a flood of
memories that Abby has been trying to keep buried all
these years. Abby and Liam, in a complicit agreement,
pretend never to have met, yet cannot resist the pull of
the past—nor the repercussions of the terrible secrets
they’ve both been carrying…