A really good read. Enjoyed the characters and the plot makes you think. It's a little scary to think you can be so disconnected from your neighbours!

Thank you Orion Publishing and Netgalley for this book.

I liked the story, I liked the characters, I like the way the book was written but sadly I felt let down by the ending. So for that it gets 3 stars !

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

The Woman Downstairs by Elisabeth Carpenter was a good page turner and then, a big let down at the end, especially as I guessed the ending! So it ended up a ok read and it passed the time. Sorry.

Big Thanks to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A brilliant author who I've really enjoyed in the past and this book captured me in the first couple of chapters.

I liked the characters instantly and wanted to know how the story would pan out. I loved that I was kept guessing throughout and I couldn't work out who had done it as the story line kept me hanging.

I love a psychological thriller but this book had both drama and the psychological element which I found really kept the pace and kept me intrigued to keep reading throughout.

OMG, what a story. I just had to devour this in one sitting. I did not expect the twists and turns that happened. Unbelievable! This is definitely a one-click author for me now.

The woman Downstairs by Elisabeth Carpenter.
When human remains are found in a ground floor flat, the residents of Nelson Heights are shocked to learn that there was a dead body in their building for over three years.
Sarah lives at the flat above and after the remains are found, she feels threatened by a stranger hanging around the building.
Laura has lived in the building for as long as she can remember, caring for her elderly father, though there is more to her story than she is letting on.
As the investigation starts to heat up, and the two women become more involved, it's clear that someone isn't telling the truth about what went on all those years ago...
I really enjoyed this book. I liked Sarah. Couldn't put it down. Although I guessed who it was I still really enjoyed this book. I loved the ending. Perfect. 4*.

Sometimes you read a novel and it reminds you why you love reading so much. I picked up The Woman Downstairs at every opportunity and loved every second. It was fast paced, few but well fleshed out characters and a really enthralling plot. I will definitely be looking out for Elisabeth's name in future!

I enjoyed most of this book as it had that 'page turner' quality that kept me reading well beyond my bedtime.

However, I was left disappointed at the end as the reveal/twist did not take me by surprise as I had already guessed what had happened to Laura, the woman who is found dead downstairs two years after she was last seen alive. There was a little twist to do with Laura's mother's involvement that made me say 'aaaahhh' out loud but in terms of what actually happened to Laura, it seemed a little straight forward and predictable. Maybe I just read too many books in this genre!

It is well written and pacey but lacks that extra depth that I like in books of this kind.
There were a limited number of characters, maybe that's why I predicted it early on, and I didn't feel like I really cared about any of them as much as I wanted to. I felt terribly sad that someone could lie dead for 2 years without anyone realising though.

A solid crime/mystery book that I would recommend others read but it just didn't stand out enough for me to give it a higher rating.

Thank you to Orion and Netgalley for the ARC.

Thanks to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Deliciously shocking and twisty, this is a must-read for fans of the psychological thriller. My, my, this one certainly blew me away. My only wish is that I could give 'The Woman Downstairs' more than 5 stars. Elizabeth Carpenter is natural storyteller, with this novel an apt exemplar of her prodigious talent. The blurb would seem to describe a straightforward domestic thriller, but it is anything but. A body is found in a block of flats, and the residents are understandably shaken by the gruesome discovery. There are the usual questions; like the identity of the corpse, and more pertinently, how did it get there? Something terrible happened at Nelson Heights, but what? We follow two residents of Nelson Heights on our journey of discovery - Sarah and Laura, and they provide the voices of meta-characters explaining the pernicious goings on at the seemingly innocuous residence. What follows is a roller-coaster ride with more twists and turns than a slalom run. Claustrophobic, with tension dripping off every page, this is one heck of a psychological thriller. The characters are wonderfully developed and creatively imagined, with the aid of crisp prose and a tautly-plotted story arc. Like an expert of her craft, Carpenter ratchets up the tension to an unbearable degree before its shocking, final crescendo. I was blindsided by the denouement, which was wickedly clever and hugely unexpected. One of the best psychological thrillers of 2020 so far.

AMAZING!

When a body is discovered in one of the flats at Nelson heights, the residents are shaken - even more so when they discover that the body has been there for three years.

As the police work to identify the body and establish a cause of death, we follow two of the residents of Nelson Heights - Sarah, a single mother who is studying journalism and is drawn to investigate the case, and Laura, a socially awkward young woman who is trying to build a life for herself after caring for her dying father for the last few years.  

As the story unfolds, it seems that there might be more to the body than first meets the eye, and when Sarah is followed by a shadowy figure, it seems there are secrets that someone doesn't want her to find out. What lengths will they go to to keep them...?

I LOVED this taut, twisty book I read so many thrillers that I'm rarely surprised by a twist any more, but Elisabeth Carpenter knocked me for six with this one - I felt genuinely winded (and upset!). Absolutely masterful storytelling, and brilliantly plotted - and I cared about the characters, too, it was clear the author had spent time developing them as they were authentic and well-written. 

Loved the story, and the main twist was very clever - I will be reading more from this author ASAP, and highly recommending this one!

NB: I was provided with a free ARC copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really, really enjoyed this book! It reminded me of a real life case that I watched a documentary on a few years back. Having never read anything by this author I found myself really enjoying her style of writing.

The story is told from two perspectives. I was gripped by the parts featuring Laura and her story. I felt so much sympathy for her. Caring for her dad by herself is difficult but she does the best she can. She is quite a lonely woman and doesn't have much of a life outside of her own four walls.

Sarah is determined to find out what happened in the flat below. To the point of I would say obsession. As she found out more it leads to some shocking revelations.

The Woman Downstairs is a real page turner, and I absolutely loved it! It has a great plot, complex characters and is written brilliantly. It is a book I would recommend to everyone. Elisabeth Carpenter is an excellent writer and I am looking forward to reading more of her work.

I wasnt t as much of a fan of this one as I had hoped that I was going to be. I found it a bit meh and ended up did not finishing it !!

Both Sarah and Laura were great characters, with the reader able to connect with both women. I thought Sarah’s curiosity and determination contrasted perfectly with Laura’s anxiety and timidness. Each time the perspective swapped it was so easy to get back into each character and I was kept hooked throughout.

The plot itself was excellently written, it played on the horror of being so unknown and alone that no one would know you’d died. It takes the fears of the reader and puts them into writing, building up the sadness of the crime throughout and increasing the intensity. It’s very clever writing, it’s detailed, emotional, fast paced and full of suspense.

Each character plays an important part in finding the heart of the story. They all add an element of intrigue or surprise, an added layer to the mystery, and it works really well. The ending is at just the right point in the story, right when the suspense builds we reach the reveal and it’s brilliant. Everything starts to link together really well, in a way that’s clever and not too obvious.

If you want something that will grip you right from the start and play on deeper fears in an extremely clever way, this is the book for you.

Told from two perspectives, Sarah in present day and Laura two years previously. This book starts well with the discovery of a body that has been there for two years, seemingly unmissed and unknown about. The whole book kept me turning pages and I felt a sadness at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

When human remains are found in the empty apartment at Nelson heights, Sarah is terrified as well as curious to know more about the situation. Soon she discovers, the remains are 2 years old, which means there had been a corpse lying just below her flat for 2 years since she'd moved in. How creepy is that!

Sarah, is a journalist living with her son at Nelson Heights, also working as a waitress at the neighborhood Cafe. Her ex-husband Alex is a cop working on the case and her current boyfriend Rob, an IT guy seems to be ghosting her recently. Reluctant to know more about the case, she starts digging into the person and she's about to discover shocking facts about her neighbors!

Meanwhile we get to know about Laura, who is currently jobless at her 30s and living with her dad as a carer who died 2 years ago. Now she barely leaves her house, and suffers from insecurity. She had a horrible time at her primary school where she was bullied by the kids and her father homeschooled her afterwards. Her mom is nowhere near her and she has no good friends to support. Now her job searches are mostly a failure but when she gets a telecaller job, she doesn't hesitate to join even when her boss is among her bullies from primary school.

It's not until later when the connection is revealed and you'd have to travel almost 80 percent of the book to discover that. Meanwhile we get to befriend both the women, their lives and everything about them. All the while, the mystery remains and the reader has no clue of what's going on. I liked the parallel narrations the author had implied. It kept me hooked and curious all along. Watch out for bullying, office place harassment, loneliness, depression and suppressed feelings in the characters involved. Emotional, dark and creepy this book is a treat for crime fiction fans!

This book is a brilliant thriller, told in the present tense by narrators Sarah and Laura, who, at the beginning of the book do not know each other. The discovery of a body in their building is their point of connection, but this is a slow burn of a novel which keeps its cards very closely to its chest.

You need to pay attention and stay focussed when reading it as I found so many tiny, seemingly inconsequential details became really important later on, as you piece together exactly what could have happened.

It works on lots of levels, there is the nature of whether it was a murder or a natural death, this needs to be resolved for all concerned. There is the nature of social disengagement and the sad feeling of futility that the pace of modern life can allow a situation such as this to happen-the notion that a person can disappear for years and have no one notice, or care about them really affected me as I read.

The body is the trigger point for the story, yet as his or her story is reconstructed through the investigation into what happened in that flat, it metamorphosises into a conduit through which Sarah can tackle her academic block in her journalist studies, her ex-husband tries to use it as an excuse to get her back, and in Laura's case, it is forcing her to face some rather unpleasant truths...

This story is very immediate, due to the use of the present tense, making it feel like it could happen to any of us, and the staccato sentences give us a very defined and narrow view of the block of flats where both women live- the concrete building becomes a coffin or a tomb for ambitions and a life well lived. The perception that outsiders have of what Sarah and Laura call home is immediate and dismissive, with the lack of community being blamed on the poverty of that area.

As Sarah and Laura go about being both haunted by this death and their own back stories, a more immediate threat is lurking in the shadows, who this is aimed at is very uncertain and Elisabeth skillfully twists and turns how the characters behave in order to keep the reader glued to the page and reading way past their bedtime...

I thoroughly enjoyed being kept turning page after page, even though my other half constantly complained how anto-social I was being (my kindle app is on my phone, and we have a no phones in the living room ban) , but my phone did not leave my side until the book was finished. I absolutely want to read more by this author and am excited to do so!

About the author...

Sarah doesn’t have an exciting life, but her routine will be broken when a dead body is discovered in the flat below her… Her journalist instincts will make her question who was the victim and how is it possible that no one missed the body for two years…
On the other hand we have Laura, a young woman who has decided to start working in a new job, something out of her comfort zone and that is not sure it will give her any happiness… Ready to discover The Woman Downstairs?
This had been a slow paced story, the story between the two characters is interesting and intriguing; it makes you wonder what do we really know from the persons we love and how much we trust them. Laura has not had an easy childhood and she has just lost her father, but she has never had an easy life… maybe now it will be her turn to find happiness? Sarah finds surprising that someone passed away without anyone noticing it, how is it possible? No friends? No family? And do they die by natural causes or something much darker?
As the story unfolds we will discover that there’s something twisted on the story, because Sarah can not stop digging to discover the truth and Laura will start receiving some curious messages at her work… Does everyone have a secret agenda or do they both have bad luck?
This is a slow-paced psychological thriller, but there are so many emotions involved in the story that it’s quite difficult to only point to one; a reminder that all the successes that happen during our life mark us forever, childhood, parents, love, friendship… But at the same time, depending on each person it will affect one way or other, changing our life completely.
The Woman Downstairs will intrigue you, surprise you and break a little piece of your heart, because we all are The Woman Downstairs one moment or other in our life…

Even if it's well written it didn't keep my attention and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I quite enjoyed this book but found it a bit long winded and sort of got bored half way through to be honest and skipped a lot.