The New Neighbor by Leah Stewart Review

The New Neighbor by Leah Stewart

In the tradition of Zoe Heller’s What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal, The New Neighbor is “a chilling page-turner” (People) a darkly sophisticated novel about an old woman’s curiosity turned into a dangerous obsession as she becomes involved in her new neighbor’s complicated and cloaked life.

How much can you really know about the woman next door?

Ninety-year-old Margaret Riley is content hiding from the world. Stoic and independent, she rarely leaves the Tennessee mountaintop where she lives, finding comfort in the mystery novels that keep her company—until she spots a woman who’s moved into the long-empty house across the pond.

Her neighbor, Jennifer Young, is also looking to hide. On the run from her old life, she and her four-year-old son, Milo, have moved to a quiet town where no one from her past can find her.

In Jennifer, Margaret sees both a potential companion for her loneliness and a mystery to be solved. She thinks if she says the right thing, tells the right story, Jennifer will open up, but Jennifer refuses to talk about herself, her son, his missing father, or her past. Frustrated, Margaret crosses more and more boundaries in pursuit of the truth, threatening to unravel the new life Jennifer has so painstakingly created—and reveal some secrets of her own…

From the critically acclaimed author of The History of Us and The Myth of You and Me, The New Neighbor explores the secrets that bind people together and drive them apart. – Amazon Description

This book grabbed and held my attention all the way through despite it not being an action heavy read. There are two main characters, Jennifer, a woman looking for a fresh start for her and her son, and Margaret, a 90 year old grumpy lady that has a love hate relationship with her loneliness. Jennifer moves into the long vacant house across the pond from Margaret setting the story into motion. Margaret almost instantly becomes obsessed with Jennifer.

The book is laid out in alternating viewpoints, primarily Jennifer and Margaret’s with an occasional chapter from another characters view. I would have liked a viewpoint chapter from either Megan or Sebastian. Megan is a new friend, Sebastian is Megan’s husband and they both remind Jennifer of people from her past. The viewpoint jumping was a bit erratic sometimes taking a moment to realize when and whose viewpoint you were reading.

There was a secret that managed to surprise me toward the end that I really enjoyed.

I was a little let down in the way it ended but it made sense in that Jennifer takes an action that makes her more like Margaret and Margaret keeps quiet and in the dark. I had hoped for more. An epilogue would have been a nice fit for this book.  

A strange and annoying choice for the book layout was to not have a blank page after the last page, instead the next page went straight into the acknowledgments. It was slightly jarring because it didn’t look like the last page at glace.  

All in all, I enjoyed this book and would recommend. 

This book is available through the Lake County Library System.