The Mistress Next Door
by Lesley Sanderson
Pub Date: 15 Feb 2023
Via Audiobook from Netgalley

The book made me suspect every character is his mistress! Makes me understand why she was paranoid about her kids too. Nice ending and finished the audiobook in one sitting!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Bookouture Audio, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I just reviewed The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson. #TheMistressNextDoor #NetGalley

4.5/5!

This is a great book for Lifetime movie fans and anyone who has enjoyed a book by Shari Lapena. It kept me guessing, I was on the edge of my seat, and I couldn't guess the ending beforehand. I love books that can surprise me!

Enjoyed this audiobook very much! The Mistress Next Door was a well executed who done it. Thrilled that the ending wasn’t predictable.

The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson 🎧
⭐⭐⭐/5

Thank you @netgalley and @bookouture for the early audio of this book !

Alright, so this wasn't a horrible book . In fact , I did enjoy it . It was relatable as it centered around a woman who suspects her husband is cheating.. which, I'm sure we have all been in this situation, it ruins your life. Your confidence. How you look at situations. The pure feeling of jealousy. (Thank god Im not in this situation now) But theres so much more to the story.

Ok, but heres where it went wrong .. it was painfully slow .. and I almost DNF early on ... and then, I was listening to it in the car when I went to get my child from school, and the narrator was doing the voice of the child . And my daughter said it was creepy . And I had to agree. Lol .. the character building was next to none, so I really didn't feel sympathy for the wife. Even though I generally feel sympathetic towards women in this situation, I didn't feel much for the wife in this situation, I feel like in a book I should feel I know the main character enough to hurt with them .

The first part of this book really pulled me in. I did not realize at first that it was going back and forth in between present time and past. There were so many twists that I did not expect at the end of the book that my mouth was hanging open by the end. The book really kept you wanting to keep reading and knowing what was happening. I absolutely loved it!

Harriet and Oliver should be living the dream in their happy home with their three children. But Oliver has been distant, coming home late, disappearing on weekends… Still, Harriet is surprised when she uncovers proof he has been cheating on her. As if that isn’t enough, Harriet gets a note letting her know that someone in her neighborhood knows about the past she’s been hiding from everyone. Someone who intends to see Harriet punished for past deeds. The wife with a nasty secret in her background has become a popular storyline in domestic thrillers and Sanderson’s entry is accomplished if unremarkable

Great blurb and the first couple of chapters really grabbed me but then it just dragged and just went through the motions with not much happening. There was a past and present timeline running and I love when there is a storyline running in the background that builds suspense but this one didn’t really give you anything to grab onto. There wasn’t any twists to keep your interest. I found Harriet as a character extremely annoying and repetitive and as for Oliver 🤬. Unfortunately I didn’t feel I really got to know any of the characters which for me is crucial in a read. The ending was really rushed like it had to fit in to a certain number of pages and how it all came together along with the ‘why’ was a little underwhelming. I was looking forward to this one and the blurb had me intrigued but unfortunately it just didn’t live up to the expectation.

2.5/5 🌟🌟/🌟

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture Audio for the opportunity to read #TheMistressNextDoor

The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson

Thanks to the Author, Publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. This is the first book I’ve read by Lesley, and I adored it. The mistress next door was a page-turner and left me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The ending of this book left me shook, I wasn’t expecting it at all.

The book starts off with Harriet a loving mother to three girls. Her two twins were playing at the park when one suddenly goes missing for hours. The police locate her and her daughter tells her that a “nice man held her hand and walked her across the street”. Harriet then starts receiving several letters and random threatening messages from a stranger. She become increasingly concerned not only for her families safety but is worried someone is going to unravel her life and reveal her darkest secret. Harriet uncovers many heartbreaks within the story and the most being that her husband and father of her children is cheating on her and has been for several months. I highly recommend this suspense to anyone who enjoys thrillers. This was the first boom I’ve read by this author and I loved it! I will be reading more!

The Mistress Next Door follows Harriet who finds out her husband Oliver is having an affair. There is more than just the affair going on in Harriet's life. One of their children was briefly kidnapped and Harriet is getting threading letters, is it all related?

This book got me hooked from the summary and then the opening couple of chapters and then I realized what this book is and I was no longer hooked. Im not sure if this is a style of writing or just something that happens. This reminded me so much of The Guest List, which is a book I really didn’t like. They both do the same thing. They get you hooked with an interesting premise and then just give you pages and pages of mundane filler to get to a twist.

For The Mistress Next Door, I do not think the twist is earned and I don’t even think it's that shocking of a twist. I don’t regret my time with this book but I have a hard time recommending it.

I was immediately draw into this by the narrator. I thought she did a great job of adding drama to this with her narration. The characters themselves were intriguing but each needed just a bit more development for the final twist to be as shocking as it intended. I understood what the author was trying to achieve but didn't find myself all that surprised by the twist and it didn't have the enormous impact I hope for in a final thrilling twist. I was entertained by this from beginning to end and listened to it all in one sitting. I look forward to more from this author, as this was the first I've read from her and I really enjoyed it.

Thank you, NetGalley for this advance audio copy of The Mistress Next Door by Lesley Sanderson in exchange for an honest review.

Harriet's daughter Tilly goes missing at a playground while her husband Oliver is unreachable "away on business" and suspicions run wild.
Harriett receives an anonymous note that says "are you scared" and something from Harriet's past is stopping from her sharing the note she received with the police (or her husband).
Tilly is returned the same evening with a story of "a nice man" taking her for a walk.

What happened to Tilly? What dark secrets are in Harriet's past? Who sent the note, and what does it mean? Is Oliver having an affair, and with who?
Find out all of this and more in the twisty suspense from Lesley Sanderson on February 15th 2023.

I really liked this book. Although one part of the twist was easy to figure out through the dual timeline, the final twist was not. It also has short chapters, and I love a book with short chapters.
My cons were I found it a little draggy early on and throughout the middle, but when the story picked up it was really good.
I was not a fan of the narrator of the audio-book.

This Bookouture audio was superbly crafted, perfectly delivered, and totally immersive for its audience!!!
I literally stayed up till almost 1am to finish this gem w/o complaint because I didn't want to lose sight of the plot.
Sometimes with audio, you lose nuggets of time, truth, character development, plot, setting, etc...but not with Lesley Sanderson at the helm.
It's all about the mistress and her reasoning as to why she's going to extremes to ruin the life of Harriet/Oliver/3 girls.
After all their now a family, so who should seek to ulimately destroy them? And a better yet, why?
Is this personal, professional, or someone in need of mental help?
As it turns out the answer is somewhere in between the grey areas of life.
Sure, we have kidnapping, we have another death in the wakes, we have another trauma for a different family but we also have custody issues, we have parenting issues, we have personal accountability issues!
We've all had to grow up and sow our wild oats but what if perhaps there's something from the past that we've not yet touched upon that's causing angst and heartbreak.
What if ...someone got away with something so heinous they simply cannot be forgiven?
What if....
Thank you to Lesley Sanderson, Bookouture, & Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.
This gem is due out shortly: Feb. 15th 2023

The book started out strong with the intense writing bringing the reader into the folds of the book. As the book continued the reader awaits the high point of the thriller and continues to flip the pages. The reader can feel the build up of where the plot line is going and then the book starts flipping back and forth between the present and past providing the back story. The ending I felt was a bit lack luster not aligned with the build up of the story. Harriett and Oliver live in a friendly community called Prospect Close. One day while at the playground, one of Harriet's twin daughters goes missing. She is of course frantic, but happy when she is later found. What she didn't expect was that later, she gets a threatening note. Harriett's husband, Oliver, has cheated on her in the past and she is having feelings that it is happening again. While trying to figure out who his mistress is, she continues to get notes that are threatening her and her family. She has a secret from her past that she has never told anyone about. Overall the book was ok and engaging just have a difficulty with the ending.

Thank you Bookouture, the author and Netgalley for this opportunity.

Fantastic!! Twists and turns throughout the entire story. A compelling story that has you gripping your seat and just dying to know what happens next. I couldn’t stop listening. I cannot wait to read more stories by Sanderson.

Uh.. It was really a slow start. Then it went better but the end let me down.

Nothing was connected before the end and maybe for someone this is ok. This kind revange think are never something special.

The think I like anyway was the main character. I would really scream to open her eyes. Really to blind or too in love.

Thank you Bookouture and Netgalley for this opportunity.

The prologue was intriguing, but open-ended. The first few chapters interested me but ultimately dragged on so long that I had to give up. I really tried not to.

Harriet is at the park in the elite neighborhood where she lives tending to a boo boo, when one of her twins goes missing. Although she's found safe a few hours later, we don't know who took her and we know that Harriet has some secrets of her own.

I know keeping the secret under wraps builds suspense but in this case, it was all secrets and no reveals to keep you interested. It made it where you just didn't know anyone. I felt no connection to them and had no idea why they acted how they did which is kind of central to a story like this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

Cheaters are SO EFFING STUPID. They're all the same, gas lighting assholes. "I'm not cheating on you, you're crazy." then "I broke it off, it won't happen again and it didn't mean anything." then "You can't leave me, I don't want you to leave me. You can't take the kids. Are you sure you're not crazy?" I'm so tired of hearing "I want us to try." from this cheating asshole. It doesn't friggin' matter what HE wants.

Anyway, Oliver is a cheater and Harriett is his wife. They live in a fish bowl basically and someone (or someone's) in her neighborhood are out to get her). She made some sort of life altering mistake as a child and it has followed her and now caught up to her. It's really hard to feel bad for her for keeping this secret from her childhood that changed (and ended) lives. Who really could she trust though I guess? Very few people obviously.

This one is twisty and messy and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. If you like mystery thrillers then this book is for you.