A suburban neighbourhood starts to spiral when one text message causes a nasty chain reaction with horrifying consequences.
Violence against minors.
You press send and your message disappears. Full of secrets about your neighbours, it’s meant for your sister. But it doesn’t reach her—it goes to the entire local community WhatsApp group instead.
As rumor spreads like wildfire through the picture-perfect neighbourhood, you convince yourself that people will move on, that this will quickly be forgotten. But then you receive the first death threat.
The next day, a woman has been murdered. And what’s even more chilling is that she had the same address as you—26 Oakpark—but in a different part of town. Did the killer get the wrong house? It won’t be long before you find out…
Don't just take our word for it...
“A simple, ordinary mistake explodes into a suburban nightmare in this hugely compelling, one-sitting read packed full of thrilling moments and genuinely surprising twists. Andrea Mara is at the very top of her game.”
– Catherine Ryan Howard, author of 56 Days
“Wow, It Should Have Been You blew me away. Ingenious plotting, brilliantly written, pacy and totally unpredictable, I devoured it over a weekend. This is Andrea Mara’s best book yet. Absolutely outstanding!”
– Claire Douglas, author of Local Girl Missing
“Andrea has a knack of taking our every day anxieties and turning them into full-blown nightmares. She is on of the best psychological thriller writers out there, subtly weaving darkly absorbing stories with relatable characters who leap off the page.”
– John Marrs, author of You Killed Me First and The One
Taste the very first page
Have you ever done something stupid—something unintentional, acting without thinking? You have, I’m sure; we all have. And then afterward, you pull at your hair and wonder why you didn’t slow down and think first? Of course, by then, it’s too late. The damage is done.
This is about my mistake.
And it starts with a screenshot. Well, a screenshot accompanied by an uncharacteristically mean message. At least, I like to think it was uncharacteristic. Maybe that’s just something I tell myself, because I got caught. But when it all kicks off, I’m not thinking at all. I’m cranky and sleep-deprived and ready to do battle with anyone crossing my path. That’s a metaphorical path—I’m at home on my couch, under my four-month-old baby, staring at a just-out-of-reach cooling cup of tea. The walls have been closing in over the last few weeks and I’m irritable. Missing my pre-baby structure, the outside world, the old me. And every time that thought bobs to the surface, the guilt sets in. My beautiful Bella. I adore her, of course I do, but still. I miss… me. And I’m tired. Have I mentioned the tired? The up-six-times-a-night tired? Nothing prepares you. And last night was a bad one. And then of course Jon is at work all day (which is fair, he has to go to work) and I’m trying to get Bella to nap, and she won’t and it’s hard. And I’m a little scared too in the last few weeks, just a little, that things will go back to how they were when Bella was born. Back when I didn’t cope very well at all.
So yeah, I’m cross and sleep-deprived and ready to do battle, and that’s when I see the message in the Oakpark WhatsApp group. Oakpark— where we live—is a huge housing estate built in the sixties, with criss-crossing roads and cul-de-sacs and about three hundred members in the neighborhood messaging group. It’s very useful for passing on furniture and borrowing hedge trimmers. It also has occasional open-the-popcorn dramas when something kicks off. I secretly like those moments.
I never planned to cause one.
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