The House Across The Street by Lesley Pearse is published on 6th September in hardback by Michael Joseph priced £20.00. This year is Lesley’s 25th anniversary year in publishing.
Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed has always been fascinated by the house across the street . . .
The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, and other times the women come with children.
Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders where these mysterious visitors have come from, and what they want. Does Gloria have sinister reasons for secretly bringing strangers into the heart of the community?
Then one night, the house burns down. In the wreckage, the bodies of Gloria and her daughter are found. Katy is sure the unexplained strangers must be responsible, until her father is arrested and charged with murder.
Surely the police have arrested the wrong person?
Is the rest of the street safe?
Can Katy find the truth before it's too late?
Katy Speed is a young woman growing up in what seems like a sleepy town, Bexhill-on-Sea, and like a lot of young women in the 60s wants to explore a new way of life with the new fashions and modern attitudes of London.
The only thing standing in her way is her mother, Hilda, who really seems like a very cold fish of a mother and not at all pleasant, and Katy feels too much loyalty to her kind and downtrodden father to leave.
The woman across the street, Gloria Reynolds, fascinates Katy. She is glamorous and mysterious, and owns her own dress shop. Katy is intrigued by the woman who visits Gloria in the black car, sometimes on her own, or with other women and she wonders what exactly Gloria does.
One night there's a devastating fire in Gloria's house that sees her and her daughter brought out in body bags the next day. Katy is devastated, so is her father which Katy and her mother both find a little odd, until her father is arrested for the murder of Gloria.
Katy is convinced he didn't do it and is determined to find out who did and clear her father's name - especially as her mother is adamant he can rot in jail.
This all happens at a time when Katy and best friend Jilly are mid-move to London to start their new life, but Katy uses this to her advantage to further her investigations into the stranger that visited Gloria and proving her father's innocence, but she doesn't realise the dangerous territory she's entering into until it's too late.
As always I adored this offering from Lesley Pearse. It was filled with tension, intrigue and definitely kept me turning the pages with it's punchy pace.
The character of Katy is filled with tenacity, as I always find Pearse's protagonists - I love a good, strong female lead, and her determination and quick wit keeps her going through the toughest scenario imaginable.
The family dynamics explored are interesting and I was sad to read the reasoning behind Hilda, Katy's mums, strange and cold behaviour, and was pleased by the ending.
As always the book and plot were wrapped up beautifully, and shows yet again that Pearse really is a master of her craft.
Thank you for another wonderful book, Lesley Pearse, and huge congratulations on this landmark in your career.
Read the tour stop I did on Lesley's #25in25 tour recently, with a fact about one of her novels...in this stop it was about the book Georgia. Lesley Pearse 25 in 25 tour
Many thanks to Ed_pr for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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