About the book

The Neighbours by Emma Babbington

You’re almost certain your daughter didn’t kill the neighbour. But what if she did?

Richard Wellington is one of the country’s most recognised doctors. A morning TV regular, surgeon to the elite, and scandal-proof despite a malpractice case that should have ruined him.

But when his body is found sprawled in a harborside park on a sweltering Sydney morning, the facade shatters. His murder dominates the headlines, and the normally quiet cul-de-sac he called home becomes a media circus, seething with speculation and unease.

For Liv Elliot, none of that matters – except for one detail: her daughter, Gracie, was at the park that morning. As the investigation heats up and dark secrets about Richard begin to surface, Liv takes steps to shield her daughter from the storm – steps that could destroy them both if the truth comes out.

How far would a mother go to protect her daughter?

What I learned

The Neighbours is a brilliantly tense domestic thriller set in a picturesque Sydney suburb. Emma Babbington does a great job at introducing the world and the characters and how they fit into what we think is the story – but as it progresses, we learn that nothing is as it first seems. The setting of the story almost becomes a character in itself – the neighbourhood and the park revisited at different times and with different characters to show how an innocent running trail can become something altogether darker.

The twists come thick and fast, especially in the second half of the book, where we have to rethink everything we’ve learned about the world so far. Emma Babbington does a great job of keeping the drama tight and confined to a small cast of characters, so we learn enough about them to engage in their story, but with enough of a question mark over all of them to keep us guessing. The characters also evolve over the course of the story, and their relationships shift and change as we learn more about them and their motivations. This surprisingly evokes more emotion from the reader than the usual thriller, but there’s no sentimentality here, just plausible motivations and how changing allegiances have an effect on what feel like real people’s lives.

The character of Richard Wellington is well drawn – he’s odious, predatory and plausible. He also feels very timely. It was refreshing to read four strong female characters taking the lead in the thriller, all dealing with the fall-out of Wellington’s behaviour in their own ways and, frankly, getting a semblance of revenge.

It’s a very visual story with a tight, compelling cast, and would be ideally suited to TV adaptation.