A review by duckoffimreading
The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

3.0

A rather subtle story about a haunting - a series of unfortunate events that are all connected by a single house. Plotline is soap opera level deep south drama. Set in suburbia Georgia with rich, WASPy characters who are so hung up on social graces and old money reputations. Dialogue drove me nuts…set in 1970s but these women are straight out of the 50s and 60s with their tuna sandwiches and embossed party invitations. I kept getting distracted but the small town mindedness of the characters. And then with the bombshell magazine article, the ostracism was ridiculous. Maybe I have been desensitized by Trump era media antics, but I could not understand how these neighbors and friends could just outright turn on each other. There is definitely something wrong with that house. Siddons descriptive language was very colorful, but character dynamics and dialogue were annoying.