The couple next door a novel
Interview with Shari Lapena, Author of The Couple Next Door
One summer night, Anne and Marco Conti’s new baby, Cora, mysteriously disappears from her crib while her parents carouse at a dinner party next door. What starts out as every parent’s worst nightmare leads to growing scrutiny from the police, the couple’s mounting desperation, and eventually, suspicion within the family’s inner circle. What really happened to baby Cora? The Couple Next Door is a taut, psychological thriller that sweeps you from your feet and doesn’t let you go. Book Club Babble is pleased to interview its author Shari Lapena.
Kate Newton: First off let me say I can’t remember reading a book as fast as I did this one. I finished it in three days, which is a testament to how it grabs the reader and doesn’t let go! Can you tell us how you first got the idea for The Couple Next Door?
Shari Lapena: I was trying to come up with an idea for a thriller, and I knew I wanted it to be close to home. I’m not one to research spies and so on. One day the idea just popped into my head—what if a babysitter cancelled and left a couple in the lurch at the last minute? What would they do? Would they lea
I didn’t know anything about the plot of The Couple Next Door when I picked it up. If I had done, I would not have read it. And that would have been a huge mistake as it is a BRILLIANT thriller. You see, this book centres around a baby being kidnapped…
I have two little boys so if I ever come across a plot summary that involves danger to children, I tend not to read the book – it’s just something way too scary to even contemplate for me. On reflection – that is perhaps why I had such a visceral reaction to The Couple Next Door: although my heart was in my mouth, I just couldn’t stop reading it.
Opening sentence: Anne can feel the acid churning in her stomach and creeping up her throat; her head is swimming.
My worst nightmare
Set in an affluent suburb of New York, Anne and Marco Conti are invited to their next door neighbours’, Cynthia and Graham’s for an intimate dinner party. They make the (unforgivable, in my opinion) decision to leave their 6-month old daughter Cora at home ALONE in her cot. They bring the baby monitor and check on her every half hour. However, when they return home, they find the front door open
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena review: Gone Baby?
It’s the stuff of every parent’s nightmare. Anne and Marco Conti’s babysitter cancels at the last minute. Invited to their next-door neighbours’ for dinner, they decide their six-month-old baby, Cora, will be fine asleep in her cot at home alone, if they check on her at half-hour intervals and have a baby monitor running.
Anne, in the middle of postnatal depression and watching her husband flirt, doesn’t really want to be there, knows they shouldn’t have left the child alone. “What kind of mother does such a thing? She feels the familiar agony set in – she is not a good mother.” Some time after 1am, she persuades a drunk Marco to leave, and they return home to an open front door, Cora not in her cot, and the end of their life as they know it.
Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door comes garlanded with quotes from fellow thriller writers. Mr Jack Reacher, Lee Child, tells us that “real men read women writers – because of books like this. Trust me”, while Harlan Coben calls it “meticulously crafted and razor-sharp”. Like The Girl on a Train’s author, Paula Hawkins, Lapena’s publisher tells us, placing the novel firmly in
The Couple Next Door - Hardcover
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***
Copyright � 2016 Shari Lapena
One
Anne can feel the acid churning in her stomach and creeping up her throat; her head is swimming. She's had too much to drink. Cynthia has been topping her up all bedtime. Anne had meant to preserve herself to a limit, but she'd let things slide-she didn't know how else she was supposed to get through the evening. Now she has no idea how much wine she's drunk over the course of this interminable dinner party. She'll have to pump and dump her breast milk in the morning.
Anne wilts in the heat of the summer night and watches her hostess with narrowed eyes. Cynthia is flirting openly with Anne's husband, Marco. Why does Anne put up with it? Why does Cynthia's husband, Graham, allow it? Anne is angry but powerless; she doesn't know how to put a stop to it without looking pathetic and ridiculous. They are all a little tanked. So she ignores it, quietly seething, and sips at the chilled wine. Anne wasn't brought up to create a scene, isn't one to draw attention to herself.
Cynt
30 May Book Review: “The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena
Posted at 10:58h in Psychological thriller by Clare3 Comments
I picked up “The Couple Next Door” because sometimes you just need a twisty thriller to get your heart racing. I read it mostly in the evenings after work, when I needed something to distract me from the daily grind. I had high hopes for this one, given all the buzz about its shocking twists and turns.
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What’s it about?
“The Couple Next Door” kicks off with a young couple, Anne and Marco Conti, heading to a dinner party next door, leaving their six-month-old daughter, Cora, alone at home. They’ve got the baby monitor with them and check on her every half hour, but their worst nightmare comes true when they return to find Cora missing. Panic ensues, and the police, led by Detective Rasbach, get involved.
As the investigation unfolds, we learn that Anne has been struggling with postpartum depression, and Marco is in financial hot water. The couple’s story comes under scrutiny, with the media portraying them as negligent parents. Relationships with their neighbors, especial