The people at Number 9 is a good and fast paced book that managed to hold my attention to the last page. Th

The People at Number 9 by Felicity Everett is fabulous psychological thriller with some interesting characters.

Like many others I went into this thinking it was a thriller, it’s not. It is however an interesting take on those variable creatures lots of us have, neighbours. I’ve had my share of both fab’ and awful and it’s amazing what a difference they can make to your home life. I agree that Gav and Lou were not in any way what I’d call glamorous, more like scratters from Shameless! I felt like I was waiting for something to ‘bite’ but it was more a series of nibbles and I was left feeling a little short-changed. Don’t expect twists, turns and cliff-hangers, more an insight into that old proverb about the grass not always being greener.

This was one of those books that I couldn't work out what was going to happen as I was reading it. It was well paced and with plenty of well rounded characters.

The People at Number 9 is a slow-burning, character-driven story about the dynamics of friendship. Sara and Neil have new neighbours move in next door and over a period of time, they become very close to the quirky Lou and Gav.

As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that Sara's outlook on life is being subtly manipulated by this new friendship. The two couples' children become close, and it slowly evolves into something Sara thought was for the greater good.

Lou is an up and coming screenwriter and Gav is a sculptor, they have hardly any house rules and seem to have the perfect marriage. Their lifestyle is carefree and fun, and soon Sara and Neil spend every spare moment with them, making their own lives a little less mundane and regimental.

This was an unusual read for me, I was up and down with it like a yo-yo. What I thought was going to be a slightly dark, twisty character study, actually turned out to be an extremely slow moving, intense look at how people interact with one another. It was ultimately about how changing attitudes and decisions can have an adverse impact on life, family and future.

If you're looking for a story with lots of psychological thrills and plot twists, choose something else. However, if you enjoy reading about how relationships stand the test of time, and don't mind feeling uncomfortably up close and personal with the protagonists, I'd recommend this.

I found at times, I was wondering if anything was ever going to happen. Did this even have a plot?! At half way through, I was contemplating calling it a day, but something was driving me on. When I got to around 70%, and still nothing in particular was going on, it dawned on me that this wasn't the kind of book I thought it would be. What I did realise though was that I was so intrigued by the two couples relationships, I absolutely needed a conclusion.

Felicity Everett's writing was a bit hit and miss. It was easy to read with a slow but steady flow, but occasionally I felt that the use of flowery language didn't belong. I would be in mid-sentence and then some obscure word would be thrown in purely to try and impress the reader. Instead of adding a bit of intellect, it stuck out like a sore thumb, screaming 'here's a good word for you, I'm such a wordy author'. For example, when the word 'nascent' cropped up, I'd not heard of it and looked it up in the dictionary. When it appeared again a few chapters later, I rolled my eyes I'm afraid. Some stories suit a bit of arty-farty language, it didn't do this one any favours.

And while I'm on the subject of the writing style, some of the descriptions made me cringe! I'm not squeamish by a long chalk, but up close and personal it definitely was.

'....relishing the ripe, mushroom-y scent of him'.

'....with her husband’s semen coagulating on her inner thigh..'

Urgh! No! Too much, too much! If my other half had a ripe, mushroom-y scent, I'd be suggesting a bath, or a trip to the doctor. And I really don't want to think about coagulation of bodily fluids thanks.

Aside from my gripes, The People at Number 9 was different and I was surprised, intrigued, and irritated by it's style. I was glad I kept at it as the conclusion was satisfying. What kept me going was the tiniest hint all the way through that some serious shit was going to hit the fan. It just took an eternity to get to there.

This story wasn't about getting to the conclusion, it was about the journey. I can see Everetts vision with this, and she did a good job at keeping me ticking over. This book is for patient readers who don't mind waiting for something to happen. It simmers with very little mystery, but for me, there was something that hooked me, but I've no idea what.

I'd like to thank the publisher, HQ, the author, Felicity Everett and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I was unable to get into this book and therefore unable to finish it to provide a proper review unfortunately.

A rate and insightful book, it went down the path so many of us fantasize about, however it was done in such a good way that it made you question your reasons. A thought provoking book on friendship, relationships and the strength of a relationship.

This book has turned out to be not at all what I expected. A refreshing domestic drama about relationships, friendships and life in the suburbs. Although there's not much happening, I found the story totally addictive as the characters got right under my skin, at times making me cringe from embarrassment for them and at others feeling sympathy, whilst anticipating the inevitable disastrous outcome...
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy.

Not a bad book tbh but I struggled with it slightly just because I found all the characters unlikeable! So it was hard to root for either neighbour lol. But it was a decent read and I'd read more by the author, the ending was quite sudden and I found that odd. Didn't have me hanging on the edge of my seat but wasn't bored either!

This book intrigued me from the moment I first saw the cover and I simply had to read it. I love books about neighbours and the things that can go wrong between people who live next door to each other. I think it’s because we all have neighbours and they can be varying degrees of nice or nosey or rude – The People at Number 9 takes the idea of envy and ramps it up to make a brilliant read.

This book is centred around two couples – Sara and Neil, and the family who move in next door – Lou and Gav. Sara is the most intriguing character for me because initially she invites Lou in and seems perturbed that Lou doesn’t openly admire her kitchen, when most people do. I immediately thought I knew exactly the type of person she was but it quickly becomes apparent that Sara is more the kind of person that just wants to be accepted and admired. She is very drawn to Lou and to Gav and increasingly wants to be more like them. I couldn’t make my mind up whether Sara was easily led a lot of the time or whether she was one of those people who has somehow never really formed a sense of who she is and so latches on to whoever she’s around.

Sara becomes fixated with people very easily and doesn’t seem to let go. There is a moment where she talks about her first crush but rather than it being a moment of reminiscing it seems she’s still holds tightly to the memory and the wish that she had done things differently.

Gav and Lou seem to be the opposite type of people to Sara and Neil – they are bohemian in their lifestyle and very laid back. They have chilled out parties in their home, and they don’t worry that the decor isn’t super modern. Sara seems enthralled by them from the off. Lou and Gave seem quite lax about their children, which concerns Sara, leading her to step in to help.

Lou seems happy to have Sara be her new best friend, and as time moves on I started to feel that Lou was taking advantage of Sara’s good nature but at the same time I was uneasy about Sara – it also felt like she was pushing herself into Lou’s life as much as she could. It did feel like Gav and Lou were quietly mocking Sara for wanting to be like them whilst being perfectly happy to let her run around after their children.

It fascinated me noticing how Sara begins to talk more like Gav and Lou, she begins to feel jealous of their other friends and it’s like she believes she has a monopoly on them. Neil is in the background in this novel but gradually he seems to become more transfixed by the new neighbours too, and also a bit bemused by his wife’s behaviour and new attitude to things. It felt like we, the reader, could see an overview of the lives of these characters but the characters themselves were so enmeshed in their world that they could only see the tiny details. As the tension in the book builds it felt like I was watching a car crash in very slow motion, and I was powerless to look away as I read on to see if my suspicions would be proved correct.

This is one of those books where none of the characters are particularly likeable, and yet you find yourself drawn to them and you want to know more. This is a novel that is so much about envying what others have, about being insecure in your own skin, about being caught up in the new and shiny and forgetting about all the good that was already there. This book takes things to a level that wouldn’t happen to most people but it remains grounded in reality. I’m sure everyone who reads this book will see elements of people they know in these characters.

The People at Number 9 is quite a slow-burn novel and yet it feels fast-paced at the same time – I read it in two sittings as I didn’t want to put it down. It’s not an edge-of-your-seat thriller but there is a real undercurrent of uneasiness that runs throughout this novel. I loved this book and definitely recommend it.

The People at Number 9 is out now.

I received a copy of this book from HQ Stories via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A fantastic and engrossing read with rich writing.
Intriguing with suspenseful plot lines.

The People at Number 9 is a razor-sharp, entertaining story looking at adult friendships, in this case with the neighbours. Sara is overjoyed when she spots a couple with children of a similar age to her own moving into the house next door. At first on a practical level, the house has been a bit neglected and could do with sprucing up but later, when she is chatting with Carol from down the road, she gets a closer look at her arty new neighbour, Lou, and sees something in her that she feels is missing from her life.
This is not, as the title and cover might suggest a domestic thriller, rather it takes a close look at how other people change the way we see ourselves, and in turn perhaps how others see us. Sara is impressed and overawed when she finds out Lou is a film producer and her husband, the handsome Gav, is an artist and instead of joining her old friend and neighbour Carol in sneering at the new neighbour’s bohemian lifestyle, she embraces the lack of convention, or would, if she could just lose some of those middle-class values.
The early chapters narrated by Sara show us how Lou weaves her spell on Sara in particular as she invites confidence, listens with interest and reveals nuggets about the life they have left behind in rural Spain. It is only on reflection that Sara realises that she knows very little about the pair and really she’s too dazzled to really look.
For a long while Sara has longed to do more with her talents than work as a copy writer at an advertising agency and as she becomes more friendly with Lou, her neighbour’s praise encourages her to write a book instead. Meanwhile her steady husband Neil who has worked hard to climb the heady heights of the local housing association is pulled along in Sara’s wake and soon all the couple’s social life is spent with the neighbours, previous friends simply not feeling bright and sparkly enough against this pair.
With Gav and Lou’s children attending the same school the children are also forced together for longer than they would naturally choose to be, especially as Lou is often busy doing very important arty things with very important people, whose names she litters her conversations with so that the less well-connected Sara is unsure whether she should have heard of them. The upshot is that Sara is only too pleased to be able to be the safe pair of hands who entertain the children for Lou, especially as she becomes more and more intrigued by Gav. And so the seeds are set, ready to transform the lives of Sara and Neil into something that couldn't have been predicted before they made friends with the neighbours!
Having read some early reviews I was prepared for a different kind of read and Felicity Everett really did deliver on a tale of a modern middle-class life and I had the feeling all the way through that there were going to be tears before bedtime, but whose and how dramatic I could only sit back and wait to find out.
I was lucky enough to receive a review copy of The People at Number 9 from the publishers HQ and this unbiased review is my thanks to them and the author for a thoroughly entertaining read.

I really enjoyed this book, it felt contemporary and the characters were scarily real. I enjoyed the fact that we saw things from Sara's point of view and that she was honest. She was taken in completely by Lou at the beginning but we see her gradually rubbing her eyes and getting clearer vision back. Gav and Lou are an attractive couple in a big magnet sort of way and they are skilled in using those that they attract. Sara is clearly enjoying the excitement of getting out of routine and flirting with an attractive man. She doesn't need to persuade her husband, Neil, too hard to become great buddies with them and things go on apace. Its a great read, quick paced, witty and totally engrossing. We know there will be a fall but its an enjoyable ride.

I anticipated a different kind of read than what was here. I raised it too high in my mind's eye and was disappointed as a result.

New neighbours move in to the house adjoining Sara and Neil. Their arrival creates a bit of a stir in the neighbourhood and Sara likes that 'she' becomes one of their closest friends. Sara drifts away from her own friends as she is drawn into the lives of Lou and Gavin. Both are artists in theirs own fields and their lives are mysterious and exciting, enticing to Sara.
Lou and Gavin have a tremendous impact on Sarah and Neil's life story and although it goes full circle, they have to give something up as a consequence.

I probably would not have read this book if I had known what it was like beforehand. It was simply not my cup of tea. Others may well like it, but I found it to be a tedious gossip on the life of a small group of people trying to be more than what they are.

The blurb suggests something else, something…more. I read a similar book a couple of month ago, “Swimming Pool” which took a much darker road. This is a book about a middleclass couple which gets tangled in the glamourous and chaotic bohemian lifestyle of their new neighbors. This story is more character driven. There are no twists and turns, just domestic drama.

The book is about an unlikely friendship between two couples. Sara is charmed by Lou and even more by her flirtatious husband Gavin. Lou is chaotic and full of creative energy. Sara gets encouraged by her to fulfill her dream to become a writer. Sara is not a very likable character. She is an unsatisfied middle class woman with first world problems. She is self-centered and at the same time very insecure. She is nobody I would like to feel connected to (or admit it) because she felt so damn realistic.

There is not much happening in the story. It is about how this friendship developed. We see everything from Sara’s POV. She makes her life more and more about Lou and Gavin. She looks after their kids. She agreed to Lou’s idea to homeschool their children even most of the work is left for Sara to be done because Lou is too busy with her artistic life. Slowly Sara begins to see how one-sided this friendship is and how much she already sacrificed. But she hesitates to make a change. Too flattering is this friendship for her.

I found this book very enthralling. It has a good flow and I was interested all the time what was going to happen. Maybe I expected a little bit more. There is no crime, it is a dark family drama which Sara triggers because she is full of envy and never really appreciated her perfectly normal life until it is too late.

The People at Number 9 is a story about two couples who live next door to each other in a trendy London suburb, and the petty rivalries and jealousies that can build and fester when people spend too much time in each other's company.

Sara and Neil are living a happy if relatively uneventful life in their up and coming neighbourhood when artist Gavin and film-maker Lou move into the house next door and really start to shake things up on the street.  Sara is mesmerised by Lou's bohemian style and hands-off parenting technique, and most of all by her husband Gavin!   It's not long before she's giving up her safe but boring copywriting job in order to pursue her dream of being a writer (encouraged by Lou) and as the couple's lives become more intertwined tensions inevitably rise

None of the characters are particularly likeable, except maybe Gavin who is portrayed as being refreshingly unpretentious for an artist (I was picturing him as a cross between Guy Garvey and Damian Hurst), and Sara is particularly irritating as her envious obsession with the laid-back and adventurous couple next door becomes more and more irritating and creepy.   However, it was one of those situations where reading about these unpleasant people and the mess they were making of their lives became a bit of a guilty pleasure.  It's well written with some acute and pithy observations about middle-class life and hipster pretentions.  I enjoyed it.

The tag line on the book reads "Meet the new neighbours. Whose side are you on?" And the answer for me is neither! Both couples in this book are absolutely obnoxious and frankly if they were real I'd cross a motorway on a bank holiday rather than meet them!

Sara and Neil are your typical middle class couple in a typical middle class London street. Typical until Having and Lou move in with their family. Arty, glamorous and seemingly completely confident in themselves Sara is ecstatic when they become friend. Soon she has abandoned her friends who seem oh so bourgeois now and throws herself heartily into the lives of her new friends. But Gavin and Lou's friendship comes at a high price both materially and emotionally and their influence threatens the already precarious balance of life in Neil and Sara's life.

The problem with this book is its full of really despicable characters. I hated Lou, Sara and Gavin (Neil was marginally less vomit inducing) so much I got angry reading the book. Because I know people like this! And I've been known to hide when spying on them, once literally in a bush. With a pushchair. So reading about them was painful. The other problem was nothing really happens. Basically Sara spends the whole book been the 40 something equivalent of a moody teenager that wants to be part of the in crowd, whilst secretly listing after the queen bees boyfriend (or husband in this case. But in trying to please her hipster neighbours she constantly gets taken advantage of. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Because I really didn't. I wanted her to grow a pair of lady balls. But instead she remains a sycophantic dweeb. And Lou and Gavin.....please don't get me started!

I didn't hate this book....I just didn't like it much. It's just OK. I kept hoping there would be some sort of pay off at the end but it just sort of tapers off. All that been said I did really like the authors style of writing. There's no doubt that Felicity Everett is a good writer - she just needs a good story. And characters that don't need a house dropped on them.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC for an honest review.

Oh this was so good! I couldn't put it down. A fab domestic/psychological read.

From this synopsis of this book, you imagine this is going to be a bit dark and a bit twisty, but it's not. It's simply a domestic thriller about people with a lot of money and connections in high up places flirting, changing life paths and having resentments. I understand that this was a novel about middle-class suburban life, which can be dull, but why did nothing happen? "But those changes will come at a price." I'm sorry, but I must have missed something... What changes? What price?

I didn't like the way this was set out, and maybe that's because it was an ARC copy, but this was really choppy and changey, with no indication that a longish time period (a few hours to a whole afternoon) had passed. The writing was fine, I have no faults with that, but it wasn't anything special.

There are four main characters in this book. Sara and Neil and Lou and Gavin. While each of the characters were well developed and in depth, it didn't stop them from being lacklustre and 2D. I couldn't connect with any of them on a personal level. Even though I would get annoyed at certain things Lou said or did, I wasn't getting annoyed on Sara's behalf, because I thought Sara was whiny and she got on my nerves too.

One of my issues with this book, other than it being boring as heck, was the pretentious conversations going on, all the time. I know this book was a satire piece on the middle class, I get it, but don't bore us to death with long conversations that are eye rollingly posh and uninteresting. You can create a satire piece without making your readers fall asleep. There is very little description in this book, you'll find that 80% of all the writing is speech, so it really did my head in after a while.

Now, this point is completely down to personal preference, but another reason I couldn't get on with this book was because of all the out-of-marriage flirting. It makes me really uncomfortable and squirmy reading that kind of stuff, so, since it was heavily featured in this, I disliked the book even more.

This is going to be a controversial book in terms of opinions, most definitely, and it would probably be a great book to read for a discussion, because you'd have lots of differing opinions on the characters, but, here's my two-cents:

Ultimately, this novel is a story about over indulged middle class suburban families doing things a little bit "risky" like sex in a tent or smoking weed, and worrying about things only unrealistic well-off people could worry about, like home-schooling and arts and crafts. Not worth the time it takes to read.

"The People at Number 9" is a very well-written book. I raced through it, because I wanted to see what happened next. Many times I felt as though I was witnessing a car crash-- I knew something awful was going to happen, I just didn't know what it would be. But I had to wait a long time for something-- anything-- to actually happen.

I think the book suffers from two main problems. The first, and biggest problem of all, are none of the characters are likeable. Obviously you can have a book populated entirely by awful people, but it certainly makes it less enjoyable to read. You need to have at least one character to root for, but in this book, there was no one. The second problem was the utter lack of action in the book. If I want to hear about family life on a street in London, all I need to do is ask a friend to coffee. Maybe part of the reason why I raced through it is because I kept hoping something major would happen. Something eventually did, but I had to read about 90 percent of the book before something did. I felt like the few developments that occurred at the end of the book (no spoilers here) were inserted more because an editor said something had to happen, rather than any sort of conviction in the story.

This would be a great book to choose for a book club because I'm certain it would inspire some fierce debates and discussions about modern family life, friendships and envy.

It's a solid book, just not a spectacular one. I would have given it 3.5 stars if given the option.