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Spoilers Beyond This Point

Characters:

• Kat: 25 with pink hair (total vibe), leasing a room from Joe
• Dorothy: 77, cantankerous and dedicated to documenting everything everyone does
• Joseph: lives across the hall from Dorothy, divorced, has an adult daughter
• Reggie: Joe’s dog, the star of this story
• Gloria: a house resident, dates a lot of not-great guys
• Eddie: Gloria’s current on-again off-again boyfriend
• Tomasz: a house resident, very big and tough
• Princess: Tomasz dog, not well trained
• Omar: a house resident, widower
• Ayesha: Omar’s teenage daughter
• Vince: a house resident, loves weed & playing loud music in the middle of the night
• Fergus Alexander: Shelley House’s landlord
• Will: a reporter working on the Shelly House eviction story

Summary (with Spoilers)

Dorothy, Joe, and the other residents of Shelley House have an established ecosystem. Kat has come to rent Joseph’s spare room. From the first moment, Dorothy tries to scare Kat away. This starts a small feud between the two.

“It took less than ten seconds for the letter to be consumed, the words curling and glowing until they were no more. Then Dorothy lit the stove, reached for her teapot, and vowed never to think of the letter again.”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

Dorothy takes on a lot of “building management” tasks, including sorting the residents’ mail. When a series of official brown envelopes, she treats it like regular mail…until she’s in her own apartment. Then she burns her copy of the letter. However, the rest of the residents actually read the letter, and called a meeting to discuss the contents. Everyone is being evicted, and they’re looking for a way to fight it. 

Joseph led the meeting, and tries to get support from the rest of the residents, but they’re very hesitant. Disappointed but determined, Joseph starts protesting outside their landlord’s office every day. After several days of his protesting, Kat comes back to their flat, and finds Joseph laying on the floor, unconscious.

“He was lying sprawled on his back, his eyes closed. At first glance he looked like he might be having an afternoon nap, only there was a pool of dark red blood under his head, like a small crimson pillow on the polished oak floor.”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

She immediately calls the police, and they whisk Joseph away. They question Kat, and she makes it very clear that while Joseph is older, he is very fit and active, and she doesn’t believe he simply fell. The police don’t take her seriously, and leave her in the flat with Joseph’s dog, Reggie.

Kat quickly realizes that she will be responsible for Reggie as long as Joseph is in the hospital. She asks the other residents if they know how to get in contact with any of Joseph’s family, but no one does. She then tries to find someone to help with Reggie while she goes to work each day. Through a series of unfortunate events, Kat finds herself talking to Dorothy, who’s convinced she saw the person who attacked Joseph. The catch is that Dorothy is convinced Joseph’s  attacker is his ex-wife, Sandra. The wife that Kat had assumed was dead.

“Kat stifled a sigh. ‘Joseph did. Well, he didn’t say it in so many words, but he’s clearly still grieving her loss.’ ‘He did not lose her, for pity’s sake! She ran off with a man from her amateur dramatics group, a dubious little Spaniard with a bad toupee.’”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

After explaining Sandra’s life choices, Dorothy insists that Kat needs to track Sandra down and interrogate her about Joseph’s incident. She’s so desperate that she offers to watch Reggie every day if Kat does it. So Kat agrees, and goes to find Sandra’s home. She introduces herself, explains about Joseph’s injuries, and asks a few surface level questions. Convinced of Sandra’s innocence, Kat goes to work, and then heads back to Shelley House.

“‘I am talking about Fergus Alexander, the conniving landlord of Shelley House. Did you know he is secretly plotting to demolish the entire building and turn it into a monstrous block of modern flats?’”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

Dorothy has been busy hunting down even more information. She’s learned that their landlord is planning on tearing down the current building and putting in 24 units in its place. Determined not to let it happen, she begins plotting. One of her first steps is to extend her spying to Fergus Alexander. This means that instead of staying home all day with Reggie, she needs to stake out Fergus’s office building. She dons a disguise, gets Reggie ready, and heads out for the day. 

In between her days of spying on Fergus, Kat and another young neighbor, Ayesha, ask Dorothy to help hand out flyers, advertising an organized protest. They hand out flyers all week, and on Saturday, a small group holds a protest outside Fergus’s office building, just like Joseph had been doing. A reporter named Will had been covering Joseph’s protest, and starts covering what the entire group of residents is doing to save their home. 

On Monday, Dorothy resumes her spying. She sits outside the office building, and eventually, Fergus comes out of the building. He approaches her and starts telling her just how futile all her attempts will be. So Dorothy hits him.

“She was still clutching her handbag, and as she approached the man she pulled back her arm and swung the bag with full force at the back of his head.”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

After assaulting Fergus, Dorothy and Reggie head home for the day. Kat picks Reggie up after her shift, and everything proceeds like normal. In the middle of the night, Reggie wakes Kat up. Trying to figure out what’s going on, she checks the hallway, and sees Vince outside Dorothy’s door. He says he was just coming in and heard a yell from Dorothy’s apartment. Tomazs appears, and the three of them break down the door. They find Dorothy lying on the floor, just like Joseph had.

“‘What are you doing here?’ Kat, who appeared to be fast asleep in a chair beside Dorothy’s bed, startled awake. She took one look at Dorothy’s indignant face and gave a bark of laughter. ‘Good to see you too!’”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

When Dorothy wakes up at the hospital, Kat’s there waiting for her. It’s clear that they both need a support system, and have grown attached to each other. Unfortunately, this causes Dorothy to have an adverse reaction, and she has an outburst. She demands that Kat leave.

When Dorothy is discharged from the hospital, Kat is there to take her home. Once they’re back at Shelley House, Kat tells Dorothy that the police had lifted fingerprints from Dorothy’s apartment. A  woman had broken in through the front window, which led to Dorothy’s fall. Kat then admits that the police showed her a picture of the woman, and she didn’t say anything to the police, but she wanted Dorothy to know that it was her mother. She’s been using drugs and living on and off the street since Kat was a kid. 

Dorothy then tells Kat that the reason she got so agitated at the hospital is because of her daughter. She tells Kat about moving to Shelley House with her husband Phillip and their daughter Charlotte. Joseph, Sandra, and their daughter Debbie moved in shortly after. The two teenage girls became fast friends, and spent most afternoons on the roof of the building. 

Over the summer, Joseph and Dorothy got close, planning a celebration for the 100th birthday of Shelley House. One day, while enjoying a glass of wine in Joseph’s apartment, there was a romantic moment. And just as the two were about to kiss, there was a scream from the roof. When they got to the top, Debbie was sobbing, and Charlotte was nowhere to be seen.

“And there, in the middle of the parched lawn, was the body of a girl, lying on her back on the grass, as if she were bathing in the sun.”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

The girls had been drinking most of the afternoon. Charlotte had started to feel sick, and had leaned over the edge in case the nausea got the best of her. But then she lost her balance and fell over the side. Dorothy blamed herself, convinced that if she hadn’t been about to cheat on her husband, Charlotte would still be alive. On that day, she vowed to never let anything bad happen to another resident of Shelley House. And that led to her obsessive routines that are still in place.

“‘But I’m sure the police will arrest her and you’ll get justice, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ ‘I do not give two hoots about justice,‘ Dorothy said. ‘Right now, all I am worried about is you.’ The words were out of Dorothy’s mouth before she realized what she had said. There was a moment of stunned silence as the two women looked at each other. ”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

Dorothy manages to convince Kat to talk to her mother. There’s a lot of anger and sadness, but Kat’s mom is clean, which helps lead the conversation between them. Her mom apologizes for all of her past behaviors, and admits to the many lies she’d told Kat over the years. She also clarifies that she thought she was sneaking into Kat’s apartment, and was planning on leaving a letter for her to read, and wasn’t trying to steal anything. 

Kat had also been working with Will on his story about Fergus Alexander. They’d been researching other properties he’d bought, and discovered a pattern of harassment towards the property owners before they finally caved in and sold to him. While working on the investigation one night, Kat tells Will about Dorothy and Charlotte. In turn, Will uses the story to turn Shelley House’s demolition into a human interest piece.

When Dorothy sees the article, she’s furious. When sharing her story with Kat, she’d asked her not to ever tell anyone else. This breach of trust is too great for Dorothy, and she refuses to speak with Kat. In turn, Kat is furious with Will and completely blocks him.

We then jump forward several months. The tenets have formally been evicted, and they’ve all found new homes. All except Dorothy. The power’s been cut and demolition is scheduled for this week, and still she stays. She and Joseph have finally mended their friendship, and he’s taken to visiting her every day, with Reggie in tow. He begs her to reconsider moving out, even offering to have her move in with him.

“‘You’d find somewhere else, I could help you look. Or you could even . . .’ Joseph trailed off and when Dorothy looked at him he was staring at the floor. ‘I could always what?’ It was a moment before he lifted his eyes to hers again. ‘You could come and live with me.’”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

But Dorothy is stubborn, and she has a plan. On her eviction day, she’s all ready to go. Joseph comes at his normal time, and then reveals that all their neighbors have come to support Dorothy for the day. This includes what were the current residents of Shelley House, but there’s many more residents from years gone as well. Together, they join Dorothy in her apartment, where she was celebrating Charlotte’s birthday. It turns into a huge party, with Kat the only missing guest.

Despite her better judgment, Kat finally shows up. She talks with Will, who had profusely apologized to Dorothy and Kat,  and the two start putting some pieces together about Fergus Alexander and the mysterious happenings at the house. They disappear, but the party keeps going. 

When the bailiffs arrive to kick out Dorothy, her many neighbors form a human wall, keeping her safe. Just as the wall is going up, Kat and Will return, with Phillip in tow. Kat explains that some of the suspicious activity Dorothy had been noting was actually Phillip, spending time outside the house to pay his respects to Charlotte.

Dorothy then reveals to Kat that she has a plan to enact before she can leave. They go to the roof, and Dorothy takes out Charlotte’s ashes. She tosses them from the roof, and finally says goodbye. Then the two head back down, ready to face the bailiff. As they walk outside, the police also arrive, with Fergus Alexander right behind them. 

Fergus immediately tries to take charge, asking the officers to arrest Dorothy. Instead, they inform Fergus that they’re there for him. His son, Vince, was the terrible neighbor who smoked weed every day and blared his music in the middle of the night. He’d confessed to the police that his father moved him from property to property to act as a menace, ruining property values and tenants’ lives. It’s also discovered that Gloria’s ex-boyfriend is the one who attacked Joseph, not one of Fergus’s men.

With everything nicely wrapped up, Dorothy is ready to leave Shelley House.

“‘Very well then, I suppose it will do.’ Dorothy handed her diary to Kat, for she would not be needing it any longer, and took Joseph’s proffered arm. ‘Let us go home.’”

Nosy Neighbors, Freya Sampson

Overall, this is a sweet, fun book. It’s realistic, with tame thrills and shocking but not terrifying secrets. The characters are well-developed, with great banter and silly quirks. This is the definition of “It’s not that serious” in the best way possible. So if you’re looking for something light but fast-paced, this would be a perfect pick!