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Young children are playful and imaginative. They come up with little games to play with imaginary friends. But in the haunting thriller The Woman Outside My Door by author Rachel Ryan, one woman fears that her son’s new imaginary friend is something much more troubling than just pretend.
The story tries to hold on to reality with Georgina, a wife and mother who’s struggling after her mother’s death. To make matters worse, there’s a gaping distance between Georgina and her husband, Bren, after he admitted to cheating. And now, her seven-year-old son, Cody, claims to have met someone he calls “New Granny.” Though Bren insists that it’s just an imaginary friend—Cody’s way of dealing with the loss of his beloved grandmother—Georgina isn’t convinced. And though Bren thinks she’s just being paranoid, Georgina becomes extra vigilant.
Most mothers will understand how Georgina’s feeling. We know what it’s like to wear multiple hats—to spend so much time caring for others that we forget to care for ourselves. Georgina is juggling a family and a job along with college courses and the pain of both losing her mother and being betrayed by her husband. She’s under a whole lot of stress. And when her husband suggests that she’s just seeing things—or that she’s not thinking straight—she tends to doubt her own mind.
Still, there’s something eerie going on here—and as Cody goes from insisting that New Granny is real to promising that she’s really just a game, the suspense steadily builds. The people around Georgina may think that she’s a little crazy, but she can’t ignore the signs—or that feeling in her gut that something’s not right. And as she tries to figure out whether she’s just imagining someone in the window—or the footsteps following her home from the store—readers will try to piece the clues together, too, to try to figure out who New Granny could possibly be.
The story is filled with suspects and suspicions—as well as plenty of lies and cover-ups—and Georgina struggles to figure out whom she can trust. And, eventually, all of those suspicions build to a tense and fast-paced outcome.
The Woman Outside My Door builds on every wife and mother’s worst fears and turns them into an often breath-taking thriller. As you read it—and for long after you finish—you may find yourself keeping a much closer eye on your kids.
Listen to the review on Shelf Discovery:
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