Clever psychological thriller where the reader is left wondering if the narrator, who has a history episodes with mental illness, is unreliable and over-reacting, or if there is in fact reason to be paranoid about her son’s imaginary friend called “New Granny”.
After the death of her mother, Georgina is having a hard time coping with the loss. Her son and her father are not faring well either. Then dealing with loss evolves into dealing with a mother’s worst fear. Someone is messing with her son. From creepy hang-up phone calls, to gifts and treats that mom and dad definitely did not give her son Cody, Georgina is convinced that someone is doing this on purpose.
But as her husband tries to reassure her everything is okay, and things start to maybe not be as bad as they seem, I was starting to get convinced that maybe this was a case of another unreliable narrator. I really wanted so badly for the narrator to be the one in the right, as many books I’ve read lately had unreliable narrators. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good thriller with twists that are brought on unreliable narrator, but for some reason I was just rooting for Georgina to be right.
I won’t say how the mystery is eventually revealed. I will say though that the story did build up to this great finale that lasted for a few chapters. The story up until that point had been captivating, but once it hit that breaking point where everything was happening all at once, my heart was practically pounding and I was turning pages with desperation to find out how it ended. There were twists and turns, I was misled, and the ending was satisfying. Can’t go wrong with a book like that! I would give this a solid four stars out of five. Fantastic debut novel for a new author to the mystery/thriller genre. I look forward to more books!
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my advanced reader copy.
“The Woman Outside My Door” by Rachel Ryan:
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Plot: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Mystery: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½
Writing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½, rounded down