Susanna Beard Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Susanna Beard is a mystery fiction novelist who has always been fascinated with human relationships. Everywhere she goes, she loves to people watch and this is primarily how she finds inspiration for much of her writing.
She published “What Happened That Night” her debut novel in 2017 and now has more than half a dozen works of fiction to her name.

Outside of the writer’s life, she is known for being very adventurous. She has walked the Brighton sewers, climbed the French Alps where she fell down a crevasse and even swum with whale sharks in Australia.
Susanna Beard’s passions include animals and she especially loves her dogs. She also loves tennis, and walking in the countryside, which she has said she uses to clear her brain of everything.

As for her earliest beginnings as a writer, Susanna Beard has said that ever since she was a teenager, writing novels is something that she always wanted to do.
She got afflicted by the reading bug very early on and used to read voraciously and spent a lot of time in the library, losing herself in all manner of stories.
Even at work in the corporate world, writing was always a critical component of her working life, even though fiction writing was pretty new to her.

Following a long career working in public relations, she went to the Faber Academy where she took a six-month novel writing course.

Now a popular fiction novelist she regularly gets interviewed at book club meetings, on radio, in libraries, and at literary festivals.

When she is not writing her novels, she loves to snuggle up with a soft blanket on the sofa with a hot mug of tea and her little dog on the side.

Sometimes, she loves moving everything into the garden to write among the bees and the flowers, which she believes has done wonders for her writing.

Susanna Beard’s novel “The Perfect Neighbor” is a work that tells the story of Beth.

Together with her family, she has moved from Kingston where she was used to friendly neighbors who socialized on the regular.

Things had changed when she unexpectedly spied on one of her best friends accompanied by an unfamiliar man. Her biggest mistake was voicing her suspicions to friends who do not share her view and it is not long before she finds herself ostracized.
Thankfully, her husband gets a higher-paying job and they move to a better area where she hopes to have a new beginning. She longs to make new friends but Oksana her new neighbor seems aloof.
But while she is retrieving her little dog Ruff who loves to visit the neighbor’s garden, she looks up to see Sofia a young woman holding up a “help me” sign.

Alongside several other women, Sofia had been trafficked to Britain and forced to work without compensation for a slave/forced labor syndicate.

She is also living in terrible conditions and was hoping and praying that someone would rescue her from Oksana and Keith her cruel jailers.

Thus is launched the story of these two women that is a riveting and amazing reading given how meticulously the author seems to have done her research.

With several believable characters that are also very relatable, Susanna has skillfully crafted a story that will grab you by the scruff of the neck and never let go till the very end.

“What Happened That Night” by Susanna Beard is the story of Lisa.

She wakes in hospital with amnesia and her mother by her side. Demanding to know what happened, her mother informs her that Ali her best friend is dead but Lisa cannot remember anything that happened.
Following her release from hospital, she goes to live with her mother to recuperate but life is never the same again.

She suffers all manner of nightmares and heads to the countryside and works from home to make some little income while doing therapy to deal with her amnesia.

Given that she only has vague memories of what happened, she keeps away from family and friends and spends most of her time wandering the hills with Riley her dog.
She soon makes friends with John, an elderly neighbor next door who had given her the dog since he could not take care of it.

It is not long before Lisa is so attached to Riley as her constant companion on her walks that she soon meets Jessica the dog walker. The dog is her lifeline as he offers companionship, comfort, and some form of rhythm.
But Lisa needs to remember the events of that terrible night and why they had come under attack.

Once she has her memories back, she believes she will be able to live a normal life without the flashbacks, nightmares, and fear of loud noises, men, and crowds.

Susanna Beard’s “The Perfect Life” introduces Heather who is a very lucky woman. She is married to a handsome man who is good to her, has a beautiful house, and has two young sons and she just won $29 million in the lottery.
But then the family starts getting all manner of threatening text messages from people asking for money and they decide to take a few months off to get away from it all.

She invites Natalie her best friend, her new boyfriend, and her sister-in-law with her husband alongside several very good friends to go with them to London.

James and Heather decide that their winnings will be divided up so that everyone will have something to improve their lives.

Natalie had been a victim of bullying while she was in school and this combined with the fact that she never had much money had caused her a lot of anxiety.

Heather and James have asked their friends and family to keep a lid on what they got in the lottery but, inevitably, the information will soon come out.

When Heather’s young son is kidnapped and the kidnappers ask for a ransom, she immediately suspects that it could be one of her family or friends who could be behind it all.
It is a fascinating work that explores how money can change people, even as it changes lives.