This is the first book I have read by Lesley Pearse. The House Across the Street is a slow build as Pearse takes time to build the characters and the Sixties setting. This is a difficult book to describe: part-mystery, part-romance, part-thriller. 
The house of the title is in Bexhill-on-Sea. Twenty-three year old Katy Speed is fascinated by Gloria, her fashionable neighbour, who owns a dress shop in town. Katy is also fascinated by some odd comings and goings; a black car arrives, bringing women and sometimes children to the house. Katy’s mother Hilda disapproves of Gloria, thinking there may be something illegal going on. Then one night Gloria’s house burns down and Katy’s father Albert is arrested for murder. It is at this point that the story really takes off.
The 1965 setting is well portrayed. It is a time of social change. Katy and her friend Jilly dream of escaping boring Bexhill to live and work in London. Hilda is something of a mystery; moody, cold, traditional. Mother and daughter mirror the changing times and sexual freedoms of the time. The backbone of the story is domestic violence and the lack of help available for victims in the Sixties. The House Across the Street is a novel sympathetic to the Sixties, showing the transition after World War Two as the older generation shaped by their war experiences clash with their children who want to grab their new freedoms. Pearse contrasts the awkward marriage of Hilda and Albert, and Katy’s new friendship with a barrister at her new job, to demonstrate the changing lives of women. Katy has more opportunities than her mother, but the laws protecting women remain inadequate. At the heart of the novel lays brutality but also kindness and a sense of justice.
The second half of the book flew by as Pearse expertly handles the increasing intrigue.
Here’s my review of YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN, also by Lesley Pearse.
If you like this, try:-
‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter’ by Santa Montefiore
‘Beside Myself’ by Ann Morgan
‘Good Me Bad Me’ by Ali Land
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“I first came upon this little book in the mid 1990’s. Quite by chance, really – although what is chance and what is really synchronicity? While doing a counselling course with the Exeter branch of the W.E.A., I attended a residential weekend on the edge of Dartmoor. We (students) were invited to bring along a special poem to read out, or a few lines from a book to share with the group. It didn’t matter what, so long as the words had significance and meaning. Someone read from The Prophet – I forget who – and I was spellbound. This is a flavour of what I heard:
Palliative care nurse, Melanie Smythe is focussed on two things: the job she loves at Greenways Hospice and helping care for her twin nieces. There is no room for romance. In the past she’s been let down and the experience has left her wary. Melanie fears history will repeat itself. Then a chance encounter with new locum GP, Luke McGrath makes her think maybe he’s the one to change all that. There are differences between them, but the smouldering hot doc makes her pulse race. However, Melanie is holding something back and this leads to a misunderstanding. Angry and hurt, Luke severs their relationship. Will they be able to fix what’s been broken?
What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘
