#BookReview ‘The Downstairs Neighbour’ by Helen Cooper

About the book…

In a converted Georgian townhouse in south west London, three families live under one roof.

The large flat that takes up the top two floors is home to the Harlow family: happily married Paul and Steph, and their bubbly teenage daughter Freya. The smaller first floor flat is rented by Emma, who spends most of her time alone, listening to people coming in and out of the building. And the basement flat belongs to Chris, a local driving instructor, who prefers to keep his personal life private from the neighbours.

But their lives are all upended when Freya vanishes. As the police become involved and a frantic Paul and Steph desperately search for answers, they begin to realise that the truth behind their daughter’s disappearance may lie closer to home than they were expecting.

When everyone has something to hide, can you ever really know those closest to you? Or will some secrets be taken to the grave?

Published by Hodder and Stoughton on February 4th 2021, I am extremely grateful to the publishers for letting me read an e-arc of ‘The Downstairs Neighbour’ by Helen Cooper!

I loved it!
There we are, short review, that’s all you need to know , right?
It’s twisty like a hairpin road, it’s thrilling like a rollercoaster ride and satsifyingly concluded in all the best ways. Who, even , is the downstairs neighbour?
And can we take a moment to applaud the awesome cover design which is retro and also deeply chilling?
As Helen moves her characters around her chessboard of a novel, point after point is scored against the reader who desperately scrambles to keep up with a complicated plot.
The neighbours who live upstairs, are Steph, Paul and teen daughter Freya, downstairs lives Emma and in the basement are Vicky and Chris.
All happily going about their business , awkwardly smiling in the hall as they pick up post, pass each other on the stairs and so on.
Until Freya goes missing and some rather ugly secrets are brought to light by the ensuing search.
Someone in that house is not what they seem, someone knows more than what they are saying and someone is about to pay the price for another’s mistake.
As the police search turns from a missing girl to the hunt for a body, a ghost raises its head and tells the story of a catastrohic mistake. Alternating between now and then, the multiple narrators give the book a feeling of urgency that drives the reader on past a sensible hour and into the early part of the morning. But hey! No regrets!

About the author…

Helen Cooper lives in Derby and is Head of Learning Enhancement at the University of Birmingham. She has a MA in Creative Writing and a background in teaching English and Academic Writing. Her creative writing has been published in Mslexia and Writers’ Forum; she was shortlisted in the Bath Short Story Prize in 2017, and came third in the Dahlia Short Story Prize 2018. The Downstairs Neighbor is her first novel.