Welcome to the neighborhood. Watch your husband, watch your friends, and watch your back.

Cat Winthorpe has worked hard to get what she has: a gorgeous home; social standing; and William, her successful, handsome husband. Then a friendly new couple moves into the estate next door. While cautious, a good neighbour like Cat greets them with open arms and warm hospitality.

Neena Ryder isn’t a fellow lady of leisure. A life coach with off-the-rack dresses, personal issues, and a husband who hasn’t delivered, she’s anxious to move up in the world. This beautiful new town is a step in the right direction. It’s also making Neena aware of what she doesn’t have. Namely, William. When Neena’s infatuation escalates into obsession, it’s just a matter of eliminating a few obstacles to get the life she wants. The life next door.

As Neena’s secret fixation grows, so does her friendship with Cat. But beneath their cordial interactions is a wealth of temptations, secrets, and toxic jealousy. For both women, the desire for a perfect life can turn perfectly dangerous.

Genre: Contemporary Mystery-Thriller Fiction

I decided to kickstart March with the letter E of my A-Z Reading Challenge and I was even more interested when I saw it was only 293 pages. I was in desperate need of a short book that I could breeze through and Every Last Secret was just that.

I was super intrigued by the premise of the storyline and how it was centred between two wives battling through fake friendship and manipulation. 

I hadn’t heard of A.R Torre, until researching what I could read for my A-Z Reading Challenge and as mentioned earlier, the premise of the story intrigued me.

The story is split in duel pov between Cat Winthorpe, a stay at home wife married to CEO billionaire William Winthorpe of the Winthorpe Corporations and Neena Ryder, a recent hire of William’s company to help within the company, also married to husband Matt Ryder.
The story closely follows Neena in her obsession for the finer things in life and her attempt of doing almost anything to succeed in living a rich lifestyle. After securing a job at Winthorpe Corporations, Neena and her husband move into the neglected house next door to William and Cat.

Neena forges a plan to create a close friendship with William and Cat, despite their differences in social status, as a façade for her plan of seducing and manipulating William into having an affair, in which she can subsequently use to blackmail him into fuelling her desire for a rich lifestyle in exchange for her silence, as she had previously done with former employers.

Cat and William present as a happily married couple, content with their lives, whereas Neena has the plan of climbing the social ladder with the shadow of her oblivious, but loving husband Matt, as an attempt to secure her future. 

Neena’s job of seducing William is made easier after securing a new job at Winthorpe Corporations, in which she will use to help her succeed in her master plan. Working with William provides more opportunities for her to grow closer to Matt, without being watched by Cat.

Neena slowly begins developing a relationship with William through the organisation of innocent run ins and opportunities in which the pair have the chance to become more acquainted with one another. Neena is aware that the task of seducing William needs to be slow and steady, in order to coax him into being the one to pursue the affair. Neena goes to extreme efforts to ensure they have opportunities alone where William can’t but help develop his own interest in her – taking their relationship from employer to mistress.

Cat is well aware of Neena’s manipulation and intentions with her husband, doing her best to prevent any opportunities for Neena and William to develop anything beyond a boss and employee relationship. After expressing her dislike for Neena, William ensures her that Neena is harmless and good for the company, implying that her suspicious thoughts of Neena’s intentions are crazy. 

The more opportunities Neena has with William, the more she starts to think that their affair could be more than a one time thing, imagining that it could be the start of a new marriage between the pair, in which Neena would truly have the rich and prestigious lifestyle she is obsessed with having. After spending more time with one another, problems of Williams marriage is disclosed to Neena, leading her to have more opportunity to steal William away. 

Cat and Neena begin developing a fake friendship with one another, in hopes of disguising their true intentions – Cat not being trusting of Neena, attempting to uncover her true plan and Neena, attempting to blindside Cat and to look for inside information that can aid in her in developing a relationship with William.

Cat begins digging into Neena’s past, following encouragement from her rich friend, who is equally concerned about Neena’s sudden appearance and involvement into their lives. Cat’s private investigator discovers the truth about the end of her previous employment in which she signed an NDA preventing either parties from discussing the events and an abortion she had, despite her claims of wanting children but being unable to due to her husband having cancer that left him infertile. Following on from what she found, Cat continues to be aware and on high alert of Neena’s motives. 

Whilst Neena and William are working at the office, Cat overhears Matt shouting from his home. When going to investigate, Cat finds Matt on the floor outside, following a fall from his bedroom balcony. Cat contacts William’s office to find him in a solo meeting with Neena in which his receptionist had been informed not to interrupt. This concerns Cat where she’s aware of the meeting rooms of the office being fully glass, except for the boardroom, where Neena and William were having their meeting. 

After being contacted, Neena follows Matt to hospital with the help of William driving her, with her requesting Cat to stay behind to look after their home. This provides equal opportunities for both Neena and Cat – Neena is able to continue her alone time with Matt where the pair discuss their “accidental” kiss which happened in the boardroom and Cat has opportunity to snoop around Neena’s home. 

Following Matt’s fall, Cat begins to encourage suspicions surrounding Matt’s fall and the nature in which it occurred.

To celebrate Cat’s birthday, her and William go to Hawaii at their beach home, only William has to return home early due to a work emergency, leaving Cat alone in Hawaii on her birthday. Cat grows anxious of what Neena could be up to with the return of her husband, but she receives a call from William expressing how much he misses her; prompting Cat to also leave Hawaii.
When returning home, William informs Neena of his return to reassure her that if she spots any lights on in the Winthorpe home that it is simply him. Neena becomes intrigued at his sudden return home and visits him at the office, following an exchange of texts where he revealed he returned home early due to a work emergency. Neena visits with the hopes that she’d finally be able to seduce William, without the worry of Cat or other staff employees. Neena’s plan pays off, where her and William have an affair that was prompted by William himself, after growing tired of the innocent act Neena had tried to portray.

Neena is slightly disappointed at how quickly their one night stand happened and Williams reaction afterward, but promised herself it would be better the next time.

The couples begin to spend more time with each other, participating in regular get togethers and events with the wives and their respective husbands. When invited to Neena’s and Matt’s home, Neena presents Cat with a bottle of her favourite drink Limoncello in which she bought for herself to try, but ended up disliking. Neena is disappointed at the distance William is putting between them following their one night stand in the office, but believes it is guilt from their affair. Cat becomes violently ill from drinking the limoncello drink, resulting in her to be hospitalised on suspicion of food poisoning, despite Neena’s claims that she simply drank too much. At the hospital, it is revealed to have been antifreeze in which Cat had ingested.

Cat and William retrace what they had eaten prior to Cat’s sudden illness, with them concluding that it had to be something she’s had from Neena’s house. This sparked Cat to express to William just how deranged Neena is.

Cat becomes aware that whilst travelling back from Hawaii, William and Neena were both at the office during the work emergency. This prompted Cat to develop her suspicions of an affair and subsequently, put her plan in motion.

Matt is awoken to a gun pushed in his mouth by an intruder, who quickly flees after the gun misfired. When the police arrive, their home is swept for evidence, but nothing can be found due to no signs of forced entry from the intruder. Neena begins expressing to the detective on scene that the whole event could’ve been a dream that Matt had, as she wasn’t awake when it happened. When Matt overhears his wife being unsupportive, he becomes infuriated. As a result of Cat’s generous donations to the police force, they continue to look for more evidence, doing a deeper sweep of the house, as requested by Cat who takes on the role of concerned friend.

When searching more of the house, the police find a safe full of money and images of Cat and William, where her face had been scribbled out and replaced with Neena’s. This makes her a suspect in the attempted murder. 
Matt becomes furious with her clear obsession with William, leading him to the conclusion that Neena was having an affair. The betrayal of his wife prompts him to direct the police in the direction of a safe which has something hidden in it. This sends Neena in a panic at what could be discovered, only the police check the safe to find nothing inside.

Matt arrives at Cat and Williams home, accusing William of having an affair with his wife, before revealing what had been found by the police. Cat demands answers from her husband that could have led Neena to have an obsession, to which William admits to a one night stand with her. Already knowing this, Cat plays the card of devastation to encourage Matt to leave his unfaithful wife. Cat has rules for the continuation of their marriage which she had no intention of leaving despite the infidelity. She states that Neena must be fired immediately from the company to prevent her from being able to come back into their lives.

Whilst being questioned by the police, Neena denies all allegations of the attempted murder on her husband and alleged affair with William, that led to an obsession. After being questioned, Neena returns home with a suspicion of who was responsible for the evidence that was found in her home. When arriving home, she is met with Matt who is demanding that she packs a bag and leaves, before requesting a divorce.

In order for Cat to fully forgive William, she insists that Neena’s attempted murder on her and Matt must be presented to the press. William is apprehensive at first but finally agrees as he believes it’s the only option for getting Neena out of their lives and having Cat forgive him.

After Matt and Cat’s near death experience is leaked to the press, they are called into the police station to discuss the evidence they found at Neena’s home. The police determine that there is not enough evidence to pursue the allegations further as there are no records from Neena’s bank that suggest she had hired someone to be the intruder. This is revealed to be Cat’s plan all along where she only intended for Neena to loose everything she had, as punishment for going after what was hers. It is revealed that Cat was responsible for her own poisoning and planting of evidence. 

The story ends with Cat returning Neena’s will which she stole from her safe when planting evidence. The will had detailed how Neena and Matt murdered Neena’s abusive father, before burying him in his garden. Cat also presented Neena with ownership of the property, so that if another family bought the house, her father’s body wouldn’t be discovered. At the end, Cat encourages the reconciliation of Matt and Neena.

It is revealed that the abandoned house which Neena had bought, Cat would frequently visit after previous neighbours had abandoned it, leading her to have a key of the home.

In the end, Cat gets her wish of demolishing the house next door, previously been Neena and Matt’s home, to prevent anymore neighbours from moving in and going after her husband.

A chapter is provided from the pov of William where he states “maybe because part of me wanted to see if I would get caught and what my sweet, perfect wife would do when she found out what l’d done.”

---

This was a book that I found so easy to read, in terms of following the storyline and picking it up to actually read. Each chapter was quite short, had me motivated to read to find out what happened next. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was hooked and couldn’t put it down, but the short chapters definitely aided in me wanting to read the next chapter and so on.

The beginning of the story was attention grabbing, which is something I like in a mystery-thriller book. The book started off with Neena being questioned by the police about an incident involving her husband. At the start it is implied that he had been murdered. I like when authors start their book with a snippet of the height of the plot. I just find that it’s effective in drawing someone in to read more because you’re wanting to find out what events took place to lead the characters to where they are on the first page.

With that being said, I definitely think the book lacked something – I felt like the story lacked depth and detail. Normally I’m eager to read a shorter story, but I always find that once finishing them, there are things that are missing that would otherwise make it a 5⭐️ read – they almost seem rushed. I know, I complain when they’re too long and complain when they’re too short, I can’t win! 
I found that when I finished this book, I just felt a bit ‘meh’, like I’ve read it, it was ok but I wouldn’t necessarily visit it again. I didn’t not like it, but I also didn’t overly love it. It wasn’t a story I struggled to get into, but also wasn’t a story I was eager and desperate to read and pick up again. I didn’t find it shocking in the slightest because the plot was obvious, so I knew what was coming.

I liked the length of the book and chapters, but I felt like it possibly hindered its ability to have a lot of depth.
What threw me off a lot, was the age of the characters in this book. I imagined them to be in their thirties, when it was referenced frequently that they had been married for around 20 years. I’m not sure why I found it hard to imagine them older, but when reading and it being revealed how old they actually were, I was like “wait a minute”. 

I will say there were parts of the book that left me confused and with questions at the end, like who was the intruder who broke into Neena and Matt’s home?

I wasn’t able to form any attachments to any of the characters to root for. Both Cat and Neena were equally deranged in what they did, but more so Neena as she would be infuriated with the idea of Cat stealing her husband, whilst Neena was actively doing it to Cat. 

Anyways, I’m not sure A.R Torre is an author I would be jumping to read from again, unless there were books that had themes or tropes that interested me a lot, but I also wouldn’t not read more by her. 

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5