Although I was given Freya Sampson’s Nosy Neighbors to review as a mystery, there’s very little mystery in this enjoyable novel. It’s set in Chalcot, a small English village, the same setting as Sampson’s The Last Chance Library. I’d recommend it to readers who like village stories or Fredrik Backman’s books, not to mystery readers.
Shelley House, built in 1891, was once a grand, impressive mansion. That’s how Dorothy Darling once viewed it when she first moved in. Now, she’s seventy-seven, considered a nosy woman by the tenants of the other five flats in the building, a building that has seen better days. Dorothy spends time patrolling the building every day, complaining to the landlord about safety conditions and infractions by the others. She says all the uproar over the summer started when the girl with pink hair moved in as an illegal subtenant in Joseph Chambers’ flat.
Kat Bennett doesn’t even know why she returned to Chalcot. She hadn’t been there in fifteen years, but something brought her back. She’s as grumpy as Dorothy Darling, and has no interest in getting to know other residents. She just wants to get a job to support herself, and keep her head down.
When she comes home from work one night, though, she finds neighbors meeting in Joseph’s flat. All of the tenants received eviction notices. The landlord plans to tear down Shelley House and build a modern apartment building. But, only Joseph is willing to stand up to the landlord. And, he makes it his daily job to take his dog and protest in front of the landlord’s offices. That’s before Kat finds Joseph on the floor, knocked out in the flat. Now, who’s going to take on the landlord?
Nosy Neighbors is about secrets, misunderstandings, and forgiveness. It’s about a small group of people, whose only connection was a building, who find a common goal. The characters are well-drawn and interesting. A mystery? No. An enjoyable novel? Yes, definitely.
Freya Sampson’s website is https://freya-sampson.com/
Nosy Neighbors by Freya Sampson. Berkley, 2024. ISBN 9780593550526 (paperback), 384p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley through NetGalley to review for a journal.
