3.5 rounded downI enjoyed Allan's latest novel, which is quite aptly described in the blurb a 'domestic noir' - but with (this part being my own description) added fairies!Cath, a photographer living in Glasgow returns to the Isle of Bute as part of her new project photographing so-called 'murder houses'. The one that obsesses her most is that of her childhood friend, Shirley, who was murdered with her mother and younger brother in her teens. Cath left the island soon after and hasn't returned s...

I did not expect to love this book as much as I do.The Good Neighbours opens with fifteen year olds Cath and Shirley planning a sneaky trip on the ferry over to mainland Scotland (they live on an island). We get a slight insight into what Shirley's family are like. Mum Susan who spends a lot of time with her three year old son Sonny and carpenter dad John who seems to be quite an angry man.Shirley is more outgoing and ballsy whereas Cath is more quiet and reserved. Fast forward to present day an...

This book is a masterpiece, an absolute page-turner telling a heart-wrenching story of murder, loneliness and trauma.Cath is a photographer and record-store clerk living in Glasgow, who decides to go back to the island on the west coast of Scotland where she lived as a teenager and where her friend, Shirley Craigie, and her family were brutally murdered twenty years before. As she tries to complete a photographic project on murder houses, Cath also unveils the truth behind the death of the Craig...

When you challenge childhood memories by visiting places and people you run the risk of a different truth coming in to play. The memory, as we all know, can be selective and twist colours / situations / narratives, even people, and I think this was well portrayed in the revisiting that Cath did to her friendship with Shirley and the new memories brought about when she was on the Island.As a crime story it was filled with false leads and previously uncovered truths all of which occurred at a reas...

Cath is a photographer hoping to go freelance, working in a record shop to pay the rent and eking out her time with her manager Steve. He thinks her photography is detective work, drawing attention to things that would otherwise pass unseen and maybe he's right . . . Starting work on her new project - photographing murder houses - she returns to the island where she grew up for the first time since she left for Glasgow when she was just eighteen. The Isle of Bute is embedded in her identity, the...

The Good Neighbours is a masterful work of speculative literary fiction about a mysterious murder on a Scottish island and the nefarious influence of the fairy people known as 'the good neighbours’. The facts of the case were straightforward, or at least they appeared to be. Cath works in a record shop in Glasgow and has an unorthodox hobby: in her spare time she photographs ‘murder houses’. The root of her fascination with buildings in which sinister deaths have occurred can be traced back to h...

I've only just finished this book so perhaps I need to take some more time to think about it properly. Right now, I find it hard to put into words how I feel about it. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did The Dollmaker and it took me a while to get into it. I also felt the queer aspect was unnecessarily sad. The writing is gorgeous, though, and I'm a sucker for fairies.

“Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we dare not go a-hunting, for fear of little men. Wee folk, good folk, trooping all together; green jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather!” - from ‘The Fairies’ by William Allingham, 1850.My thanks to Quercus Books/riverrun for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Good Neighbours’ by Nina Allan in exchange for an honest review.The Isle of Bute is embedded deep in Cath Naylor’s psyche. She had left when she was eighteen but has recently returned. She has ho...

Cath spent her teenage years on the Scottish island of Bute where her best friend was murdered along with her family. The girl's father died in a car crash and was subsequently assumed guilty of the multiple murder. Now in her mid 30s and attempting to make a career in photography Cath returns to Bute and gets caught up in trying to find out what really happened twenty years ago.The author describes the island (which I know personally) really well both in terms of the sense of place and of what

Every time I read anything by Nina Allan, I marvel at how wonderful it is to have found my author. I don’t mean a favourite author, I mean someone whose every piece of fiction – in terms of tone, style, content and themes, broadly, but also the smallest of details, the exact ways things are described, how her characters think about the world – could have been written with me, just me, in mind. Of course, this also means that, at this point, it’s absolutely impossible for me to review a Nina Alla...

"The Good Neighbours" is a sort of book of two halves. It starts out as a study of teenage friendship and island life. I loved the setting on the Isle of Bute. Cath is a quirky character, trying to find her place in the world. Weaved into the fabric of the novel are some interesting references to art, literature and mathematical theory. In particular, Nina Allan focuses on the work of Richard Dadd. I enjoyed the folklore and traditional music. The occasional Scots language sometimes didn't feel

Thank you to Ana Sampson McLaughlin at Riverrun for sending me a proof copy of 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐍𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 by Nina Allan.-'𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 ... 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬?''𝐈 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 - 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭, 𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐲. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞.'-The Good Neighbours is such an original and unusual story. It is a perfect read for murderinos (where my MFM fans at?), in that it has elements of mystery...

Really enjoyed this and would have given it a 5* if there hadn't been such a glaring...and to me...annoying error at the end!

This is the first novel I have read by Nina Allan. This book is not the sort of book I would choose although a murder mystery it has a mystical feel about it. Do I like that or not. I think I could read more of this type of story. The story is about a lady called Cath and we see her growing up although the main premise of the story is set when she is older. Cath had a drama in her life which stopped her from going to University and instead works in a record shop and follows her photography passi...

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.Cath works in a record shop, but hopes to become a freelance photographer. Her new project is photographing murder houses. She returns to the Scottish island where she grew up for the first time since she left at age 18, where she photographs the home of her childhood friend, Shirley, who was murdered alongside her mother and younger brother when she was a teenager.Befriending Alice, the new owner of the property,

This book was just an ok read for me which is why I only gave it two stars. I found it a little hard going and difficult to follow. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

I'm really grateful to Ana McLaughlin at Riverrun for an advance copy of The Good Neighbours to consider for review. Nina Allan's books are among my favourite reads of recent years so I was VERY excited to that The Good Neighbours was coming - and indeed, it's classic Allan, an apparently simply story but which proves to have many depths and currents to it.We first meet Cath, whose story this (mainly) is, getting ready, with her friend Shirley Craigie, for a Saturday trip to the Big Town. Shirle...

“What goes on inside another person’s head is hard to fathom sometimes. Some people see more than others, simple as that. What they see isn’t really there, though. Who are we to know, when we don’t see it?” Well this book took me completely by surprise in its brilliance. Cath is a photographer working on a new project focused on murder houses, primarily the house in which her childhood best friend was murdered along with her mum and brother by her father. Several years later Cath is back where s...

I’ll say from the beginning that I love this cover, it’s interesting and has so many little details that are related to the plot that after reading I look at it with different eyes.I have to say that if you start reading this book it will be impossible to put down till you arrive at the end, I started reading it one day when I wasn’t feeling well and I thought I would be able to read a little and then sleep; what a joke! I read it in one sitting and I didn’t sleep at all!This is a slow paced sto...