Liz McAdams knows a lot about her neighbors. Recently divorced, with time on her hands, she amuses herself by observing them as she walks her dog past their houses. And no life looks more wonderful than Sabrina Thompson's. Beautiful, wealthy, married to a gorgeous husband, Sabrina seems to have it all.
But one day Liz sees something through Sabrina's bedroom window – something that could blow her seemingly perfect marriage apart.
Liz is shocked and intrigued. She herself has always played by the rules and now she can’t help envying Sabrina’s reckless abandon as she risks everything for her own pleasure.
Fascinated, she starts to watch Sabrina’s every move. And soon realizes that her glamorous neighbor has some very dark secrets.
Then there is a chilling murder on this affluent street, and Liz wonders if Sabrina could be involved. Even more disturbing, Sabrina seems to have noticed that Liz has been shadowing her.
Leaving Liz with two terrifying questions – Is Sabrina a killer? And what might she do to the woman who knows too much?
This book was so unbelievably juvenile that it eventually became pathetic. You mean to tell me these characters are all supposed to be in their 30s, and yet they speak and behave like they're still in high school? Seriously? At one point, Liz actually thinks about how Sabrina is "like the pretty girl at school" and how every time she sees her, she wants to "do or say something to make her notice me, to make her like me." Later, she's worried about whether Sabrina thinks she's "nosy" or "uncool." I mean... Come on. How pathetic can you be? There were honestly times when I became so annoyed with both of these women that I found myself wishing they were the ones who had been found dead so we could focus on some characters who weren't quite so damn annoying.
Let's start with Liz, who is our first narrator in this dual-POV train wreck.
Liz was a highly successful divorce lawyer until her husband left her, claiming she never spent any time with him or on their marriage because she was too focused on her career. Never mind that she was apparently the one funding their entire lifestyle, including their huge house in a nice neighborhood. After the divorce, Liz decides to take an entire year off work to write a novel when she has never written a book before, nor does she have any idea what to even write about. Sure. Let's just take a year off from a successful career, stop bringing in an income, and live off our savings because obviously our old firm will be waiting with open arms if we decide we want to come back. Whatever.
Anyway, during one of her regular walks around the neighborhood with her dog, Liz decides to check the mail and discovers an envelope addressed to one of her neighbors down the street. She decides to be a good neighbor and drop it off. That's perfectly reasonable considering it's the sort of thing you would expect your neighbor to do right? What isn't reasonable is what happens next. She happens to see her neighbor, Sabrina, having a very intimate encounter with someone who is most definitely not her husband. And from that point forward, Liz becomes completely obsessed with Sabrina. She goes home and spends hours online digging into Sabrina and her husband, Gavin.
Then, when Gavin turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, Liz's obsession goes into overdrive. She starts walking past Sabrina's house every couple of hours. Even when there is absolutely nothing for her to see. Her obsession becomes so ridiculous that she actually gets annoyed when her mother comes to visit because she knows her mother's visit will prevent her from taking her regularly scheduled stroll past Sabrina's house. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was so interesting especially when you take into account the fact that there was nothing particularly fascinating about Sabrina and Gavin while Gavin was alive, and after he's dead, Liz doesn't learn anything by walking past the house that she couldn't have found out from the comfort of her own home (which is nothing, by the way).
I wish I was kidding. At one point, after seeing Sabrina put into the back of a police car and repeatedly refreshing her search engine without finding any new information about the case, Liz decides to walk past the house again because apparently it's been "two hours" and the police "haven't said anything." What exactly did she expect to accomplish? And honestly, why did the police never look twice at her? Because if I were investigating this case, I'd be wondering about the weird woman who keeps circling the crime scene every few hours. She seemed like the most suspicious person in the neighborhood to me.
Then we get Sabrina's POV, and if you thought Liz was annoying, buckle up because Sabrina is a real nasty piece of work. She is incapable of caring about anyone other than herself and spends most of her time thinking she's better than everyone around her, including her husband and the many men she sleeps with to keep herself entertained. One of the things that made her particularly unbearable was her habit of deliberately figuring out what her lovers like so she can turn herself into their perfect "fantasy woman," only to then get annoyed when they behave exactly as she should have expected them to. You can't create a fantasy version of yourself for someone and then get the ick when they actually fall for it. That's not how this works.
She also spends a great deal of time portraying herself as this wounded, mistreated wife while simultaneously sleeping with multiple men. And some of the things she considers evidence that these men are horrible? One checks in on her and tells her how much he cares about her. Oh, the horror. Another lover understandably doesn't want to get himself mixed up in whatever the hell is going on with Sabrina after her husband's death is ruled suspicious. When she finally convinces him to meet her in person, he tells her he's recording their conversation "for his own safety." And Sabrina still refuses to say anything that might incriminate herself because she's worried he could take the recording to the police. Meanwhile, she openly admits that she lies to men all the time, yet it never seems to occur to her that perhaps one of the men in her life might also be lying to her.
Unfortunately, most of the actual plot is spent bouncing between Liz obsessing over Sabrina and Sabrina thinking she's better than everyone else while increasingly flaunting the men in her life. We also have the two detectives assigned to the case, Detective Rosemont and Detective Laws. And yes, Laws also went to law school with Liz before deciding to become a cop. Because apparently this town has approximately six people in it and everyone knows everyone else.
There were also several places where I thought the book desperately needed a tighter edit or, at the very least, some clarification. For example, during one of Liz's neighborhood walks, she notices how busy everything is for a Friday afternoon. She even remarks on how strange it is to see Gavin's car in the driveway because he's never home this early, not even on a Friday. She turns around and starts walking back toward her house when her phone rings with an incoming call from her mother. Who asks if Liz has any plans for that evening because it's Saturday night. I'm sorry... When did we jump from Friday to Saturday? And then, because apparently that wasn't confusing enough, Liz abruptly ends the call when she notices police cars and ambulances outside Gavin and Sabrina's house. You know. The house she was just walking away from.
There was also the matter of Sabrina being handcuffed when the police come to tell her they need her at the station for further questioning. They not only cuff her, but lead her out of her house in handcuffs in front of anyone who happens to be watching. That seemed like a bit much considering she's allowed to walk out of the station just a few hours later.
And then there's Liz's old law firm. She's been gone for months, yet somehow she still has an office there, her credentials still work, and she can apparently stroll into the building whenever she wants and access sensitive client information on the firm's servers. Because I'm sure that's exactly how law firms handle former employees.
All of these things added up to a book that sounded much better than it ultimately delivered. I will give it credit for being a quick read, which I appreciated, but unfortunately, quick doesn't necessarily mean enjoyable. Between the juvenile behavior, characters I couldn't stand, questionable decisions, and a handful of plot and continuity issues that pulled me right out of the story, this one just wasn't a book I vibed with.
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