Published By: Penguin
Pages: 432
Released On: 15/01/2026
Kitty thought moving to London would spice up her life. Unfortunately, she ended up on Ashdown Close, where the hottest topic of gossip is a missed bin collection.
That was before the arrival of Sian and Rich at number 8. They are cool and glamorous, and Kitty is perfectly willing to be dazzled by their company.
But when she spots a mysterious woman furtively leaving their house, she realises they might not be the magnetic couple she thought. Aided and abetted by best friend Grace, Kitty feels she needs to investigate.
Do Sian and Richard really have something to hide, or are Kitty and Grace just being nosy neighbours?
And if they are, perhaps they are not the only ones.
Because on this street’s nobody’s business might just turn out to be everybody’s business . . .
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I love Jane’s books so much. But this felt like a completely different angle to the other one’s I’ve read. But where it is similar is in the fabulous writing and storytelling and character creation.
One thing I love about her books is that the characters aren’t perfect. A lot of books make their protagonists to be perfect, a bit twee, where everything goes well for them. But very few people are like that in real life. Jane has written some very good characters and some very bad characters (in terms of who they are, not in terms of the writing ability), and even the good ones are ugly at times and I enjoyed that. Having said that, even though they were well written, I found I didn’t really care about the characters. It’s not that I didn’t like them as such, but I found it difficult to connect with any of them. What didn’t help is I didn’t like the main character Kitty. She was playing the victim but I found most of her issues were of her own doing and so I just found her irritating.
The start is obviously introducing our characters to give us something to invest in. And then about halfway it gets more into that psychological thriller, so I definitely got more into it then, I just wish it had started a little earlier.
I think one thing I’d have liked is for it to have been darker or lighter. I love a dark, morbid book, but I also love a fun, frivolous read. This felt like it was straddling both and was neither one thing nor another.
It started off slow and I did keep checking how far into it I was because it seemed like I wasn’t getting anywhere. But it definitely did improve and the pace picked up and I found it more engaging. Perhaps if it was a little bit shorter then the pacing might have worked, but it felt like it dragged somewhat.
I also found the ending a bit…perfect, I suppose is the word. The story itself and the characters are a bit haphazard and a bit mad, and the ending was a bit too neat for me, which felt at odds with the rest of the book.
I didn’t like it quite as much as her other ones. I did like it, I did, it’s well written and fun, but there was something about it, something I can’t quite define, which meant I struggled to lose myself in it. I would still recommend it because I’ve seen other reviews giving it raving 5-star reads so I think it’ll split the crowd. The story is interesting, the pacing a bit off, the characters a bit bland and the ending too twee; and I hate saying anything negative about her work because generally it’s brilliant. But it won’t in any way stop me from reading her future books.
Books By Your Bedside 