Welcome friend! Yesterday I shared about The Neighbors Are Watching, a domestic thriller set in a seemingly picture-perfect neighborhood where everyone has something—or someone—to protect. I was especially drawn to the layered community Aggie Blum Thompson created, the unlikely friendship between Caren and Finn, and the many ways the characters are navigating change, loyalty, and the consequences of their choices. I’m delighted to welcome Aggie to Armed with A Book to talk about the characters, community, and craft behind this compelling story.
The Neighbors Are Watching
From the “master of suburban scandal” (Samantha M. Bailey) comes a scandalous suburban thriller about privilege, unlikely friendships, and the lengths we go to protect our family.
Just outside Washington D.C. sits Eastbrook, Bethesda — a leafy suburb with top schools, manicured lawns, and friendly neighbors. It’s not the kind of place where nannies are shot during robberies gone wrong. But like any picture-perfect neighborhood, it’s been easy to cover up the shadows and move on.
A year after the unsolved neighborhood murder, Caren, nearing fifty and staring down an empty nest, has one too many drinks at a graduation party and blacks out on her way home. At least, that’s what everyone says happened. Caren suspects she was drugged by someone. But who?
When Caren teams up with a new neighbor who is desperate to figure out who murdered his best friend last year, they start to uncover what Eastbrook has tried to forget. But in a place where appearances are everything, their search for the truth means not only shattering carefully built façades — but putting themselves squarely in the crosshairs of a killer.
Get to know the author: Aggie Blum Thompson
Hi Aggie! Welcome to Armed with A Book. It is a pleasure to chat with you. Please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself.
Hi! So happy to chat with you! Once upon a time I was a newspaper reporter where I covered crime mostly. Now I write domestic suspense novels.
The Neighbors Are Watching is my fifth, and this one is a bit more of a classic mystery/whodunnit. If you imagine Miss. Marple’s village, St. Mary Mead, was updated to an upscale suburb of Washington, DC in 2026!
My fourth book – You Deserve to Know – is going to be turned into a Hulu series starring the leads from The Vampire Diaries, Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley (Stelena forever!) and my sixth novel – Hide Me in the Night – will be out in 2027.
Early in The Neighbors Are Watching, Caren mentions preferring to go by CJ rather than being associated with the stereotypes attached to her name. What inspired you to choose this name for your protagonist?
Growing up I knew tons of Karens, and Carens, and Karyns! It was a very popular name. And watching it become synonymous with a terrible type of woman got me wondering about how all of these Karens must feel!
Caren is at a crossroads in several areas of her life—not just because of the mystery, but because she’s facing unemployment and the prospect of becoming an empty nester. Why did you choose to meet her at this particular stage of life?
I think it’s underexplored territory in thrillers and mysteries. But the shifting identity of that time in life is such fertile ground for all the things that make thrillers so fun.
Finn is a librarian who has spent the past year trying to find justice for his friend Autumn after her murder. What drew you to Finn as one of the people through whom we experience Eastbrook, and what did you want readers to understand about him beyond his search for answers?
I really loved the idea of a cross generational friendship. And two different types of personalities. Finn is quiet and reserved, less likely to confront people head on – at least in the beginning of the book. He kind of absorbs some of Caren’s type-A mom energy through the book and that gives him the strength to track down his friend’s killer. It was important to me to portray Finn’s friendship with the murder victim, Autumn, as so close it’s really like family. Those really tight non-biological bonds are super common in the queer community.
It takes some time before Finn and Caren begin working together, and I really enjoyed getting to know them independently first. How did you decide where their two storylines should finally intersect?
The story just made it happen! I did want readers to have a chance to see them as separate people, on their own paths for truth. But at some point, it just seemed natural they would cross paths, and on Yumi’s porch of course!
Finn and Caren come from very different generations and life experiences, yet their friendship develops naturally. Caren could easily have been paired with another mother from the neighborhood, while Finn might have had a friend closer to his own age as his ally. What made you want to bring these two together instead?
First of all, I think maybe we as a culture are too caught up in age and generations! People can find like-minded friends in any age group and we should have friends in different decades. I think Finn and Caren brought different perspectives and life experiences to their search for the truth. For example, Finn is kind of alone in his hunt for Autumn’s killer, and Caren has a ton of community. On the other hand, Finn has an outsider’s perspective that allows him to see things that Caren might be blind to. There’s a point in the book where Caren says something like mid-life is about saying goodbye to so many things, and now she’s saying hello to this new friend. So I kind of love that for them, that they each filled a need in each other.
Tori, Autumn’s former employer, is a mental health professional navigating divorce, shared custody, and her own complicated relationship with the people around her. She turns to AI to help navigate her mental health. What prompted you to weave such a contemporary element into her storyline?
Oooh boy! Back when I first wrote the book, AI was definitely on people’s minds but now it has become a huge topic. I saw articles saying that the future of therapy would be AI chatbots and that just sounded like a bad idea to me. At the same time, we are experiencing a loneliness epidemic so I see how very lonely people might be drawn to using it. I wanted to explore how one unstable woman’s dependence on AI could prove absolutely disastrous, even if she did have training in mental health.
Several parents in the novel carry enormous hopes for their children’s futures, particularly around prestigious universities. What conversations or observations inspired you to explore that kind of pressure?
Living in a suburb where parents take college very seriously has allowed me to get an earful of parents’ hopes, dreams, and fears for their kids. I think it has gotten way out of hand and the pressure that the parents feel, and the pressure they put on their children, is not healthy at all. There is very much a winner-takes-all attitude that blinds people. It can be really toxic.
The cast of The Neighbors Are Watching is wonderfully layered, and by the end I felt I understood how everyone fit into the community. Was there another character’s perspective you were tempted to include, or one you still wonder about after finishing the novel?
There was no one I did not include, but I was really taken with Paula by the end, Finn’s landlady! I wonder what she is up to these days, and if she isn’t out solving crime.
By the end of the novel I felt like I could mentally map the entire neighborhood and everyone’s relationships. Was keeping track of those connections one of the biggest challenges while drafting?
The biggest challenge was keeping track of what each character knew and did not know! So many secrets!
Readers may finish the book with different opinions about who made the biggest mistakes and who deserved the most grace. Was there a particular conversation you hoped readers would have after turning the final page?
Without giving anything away, I hope the readers are somewhat sympathetic to the poor choices that some, not all, parents made. They did it out of a misplaced sense of love and protectiveness toward their children and while that doesn’t make it okay, I hope it makes those choices feel authentic.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you so much for reading!! I really appreciate it. Come say “hi” on Instagram!
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me!
Thank you!!♥️
Thank you, reader, for joining me and Aggie today!
The Neighbors Are Watching is now available wherever books are sold! Be sure to check your local library too. Add this book on Goodreads. You can read my review here.
Many thanks to the Minotaur Books for the review copy and the interview opportunity! I appreciate every book that meets me in my mailboxes and every author who will take a few moments to chat about their book.
Be First to Comment