Neighbourhood Watch

Neighbourhood Watch is based on family dynamics and lifelong repercussions of decisions and actions made in youthful haste. Self-preservation and maintaining a good public image are strong motives throughout the book. Such incentives can lead even the most upstanding people to deception and reveal a darker side, if only to themselves.

Although the main characters differ greatly, they are all linked by events from the past. Neighbourhood Watch explores the danger of putting misplaced trust into institutions or their representatives, for this trust can be manipulated and used to the advantage of those it is placed in. Within the story, there is a heavy focus on the humanity of people and how they deal with a set of circumstances they may have no control over. There is an underlying current that is deconstructed – that a confident woman is seen as almost arrogant and untrustworthy, and is not to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Gemma Bolger is a mother of four, who has only recently taken up writing as her children have gotten older. Gemma is married to Pat and they have recently celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. Living in rural Waterford, she enjoys the space and peace of her surroundings. Gemma runs a small engineering business with her husband but still manages to find time for her hobbies. As well as reading and creative writing, she loves to swim and sing – but not at the same time! Weather permitting, she does her best to be green-fingered and loses herself in gardening.