Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Published by: HQ Stories
Publication date: 9th April 2026
Content warnings: domestic abuse, toxic relationship, violence, death, stalking

“Two Neighbours. Two Secrets. One chance at survival.”

I’ve felt a bit burnt out with reading lately and not sure why! Short books often work for getting me out of a slump and I was still in desperate need of another thriller (obv!) so I reached for this one. My wonderful friend Kim (you may know her as @kimandakindle) kindly bought a couple of these Quick Reads books for my birthday, and this was just what I needed! It’s reminded me just how much I love Louise’s fabulous writing after completely inhaling The Intruders a few years ago. I’m very behind with her most recent novels so I am bumping them up the massive list after reading this! So happy to be sharing my review of The Woman Next Door by Louise Jensen, a super short, gripping thriller you can finish in a sitting or two!

About the book

Running from her past, Meena hopes to find peace in her new home. But her neighbour, Ada, is a mystery. Meena can’t shake the feeling that something about Ada is off.

Ada is delighted to have a new neighbour, but she, too, knows Meena is hiding something.

While Meena and Ada are watching each other, someone is watching them. With danger closing in, they must rely on one another to survive, but when both are lying, trust becomes the deadliest weapon.

What secrets lie next door?

My thoughts

I loved how easy this book was to sink into, how quickly I became so curious about our two main characters, Ada and Meena. Ada is quite a nosey neighbour, and when Meena arrives, moving into the house next door, she’s instantly at the window, watching. Observing. Something doesn’t seem right when Ada introduces herself, when she notices Meena’s lack of personal belongings being moved into the house. But Meena also can’t ignore that niggling feeling that something is off about Ada, too. I loved this; two neighbours, suspicious of each other, both hiding things of their own. Things were certainly interesting here!

I’ll be honest and say the pacing was way too fast for me, but being a short book, it’s natural for things to progress at a much speedier pace than a standard novel. I think I just wanted to spend more time with these characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! We quickly start to experience strange things. There’s a creepy as hell basement, a suspiciously acting police man, an injured cat. It isn’t long before we’re learning more about Meena’s dark past, an abusive partner and her desperation to get away. But was her new home the safe place she’d hoped it would be? The mid-point twist was great and the author has done a great job of building up to it in just a few short pages. It must have been so difficult to pull off!

“Everyone has a story, don’t they? But not everyone likes to share them.”

I began to watch Ada more closely; her secret was HUGE, a secret that connected her with Meena quite substantially. The chapters throughout this fast-paced descent to the ending were incredibly short, some of them only a sentence or two long. But god did they make you sweat with nerves and anticipation! While these two women were suspicious of one another, there was someone else watching them both… There were certainly a few predicable eye-rolling moments here and there, but it was fine and didn’t annoy me too much. Some details seemed to have been shoved in ‘just because’, and maybe it felt like that because it was so fast and over so soon. There is just not enough time or pages to develop plot points further so I will let it slide for these shorter reads 😂 I did enjoy how everything tied up neatly by the end and how the book ended on a positive note after all the darkness!

Overall, The Woman Next Door is a very fast-paced psychological thriller that builds a surprising amount of tension for such a short book. I enjoyed the dual POV from these characters despite not getting as much time as I wanted with them, two lives that were intertwined in such a shocking way, something I found very difficult to look away from! I loved the twists and how Ada and Meena were connected, their initial suspicion of one another paving the way for something brilliantly unexpected. Despite some predictable ‘okay’ moments and my annoyance that the pacing was too fast (just me being super picky and somehow can’t deal with Louise’s brilliant writing in such a short book 😅) this was a decent quick read to fit in between books when you need a breather, or just something a bit different. A bingeable novella from an author who knows how to keep you reading!

Huge thanks to lovely Kim for my copy! You can grab your own copy of The Woman Next Door on Amazon* or wherever you buy your books. Make sure you’re following the author over on Instagram for more updates!

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks so much for your support!

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