So many stories hidden behind closed doors . . .
It's late at night and the rain is pouring down on the Dublin city streets. A mother is grieving for her dead child. She stands silently outside the home of the teenage boy she believes responsible. She watches . . .
In a kitchen on the same square, a girl waits anxiously for her mum to come home. She knows exactly where she is, but she knows she cannot reach her.
A few doors down, and a widow sits alone in her room. She has just delivered a bombshell to her family during dinner and her life is about to change forever.
And an aspiring theatre director has just moved in to a flat across the street. Her landlord is absent, but there are already things about him that don't quite add up . . .
Welcome to Primrose Square.
Many thanks to Bonnier Zaffre via NetGalley for my copy of The Secrets of Primrose Square to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
With Claudia Carroll's last book Our Little Secret, I felt her writing was venturing in a new direction and I loved it. It was vastly different from her earlier novels, every one of which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I think she is continuing this move with her new book The Secrets of Primrose Square. The colourful cover is inviting and makes you eager to venture to a unique little corner of Dublin. You may think upon first judgement of both the cover and title that this book will be all lightness and just nothing but good things will happen for the all the characters but that is not the case. From the opening chapter it's clear that although Primrose Square may be idyllic and yes it does offer comfort and solace and a sense of community and friendship to those that live there all is not as it seems.
Beneath the surface the residents all have issues they are trying to cope with. Some would prefer their business to be kept private and that they keep going the way they are. Others are venturing down new and unexpected paths in life and are eager and excited to see what direction these new choices will take them in. One thing is for sure with this book Claudia Carroll takes the reader on an interesting journey following three women and a young girl as they face testing and challenging times. All are connected through Primrose Square but little do they realise just how important the friendships and bonds that they form will become for each of them.
The story had a very powerful opening as Susan Hayes stands in the pouring rain outside a teenage boys house. She does this most nights and as she says herself she is 'just an ordinary woman dealing with the unimaginable the only way she knew how'. She has become fixated on this one house because of the person it contains. The guards have been called several times but she just keeps returning. Clearly Susan is not functioning properly and is being eaten up by something she cannot forget. I thought it was brilliant the way we were drip fed the reasons explaining why Susan was in the state we find her in. I could guess parts of it but not until the exact cause was revealed did everything make perfect sense. Susan must have been a challenging character to write about simply because the author had to get the exact tone of her situation and state of mind right. I think Claudia did this very very well. I felt every bit of Susan's anger and hatred and understood why she directed it in the manner she did this but I did question was it fully justified or was it just a coping mechanism? Had she all the answers or was she simply looking to lay the blame at someone else's feet? Susan is consumed by grief at the loss of her older daughter and she wants answers and if you could call it revenge then that too.
Susan presents a front when in contact with her husband Frank, who is away in the army and also to kindly concerned neighbours, Jayne being one of them but to all intents and purposes she is lost and floundering and her life is falling apart. Yes she has at some stages tried to pick up the pieces for the sake of her younger daughter Mellissa who is only 12. But 'there were two many memories at every turn, just waiting to creep up on you, even when you were trying to be brave and not cry and keep the whole show on the road'. Susan is on a path of self destruction and her method of climbing out of the doldrums can only lead to even greater devastation. Dealing with the loss of someone and the ensuing grief is a tricky subject when writing a book but time and time again I found myself nodding along to some of the brilliant writing from Claudia. I went back and reread numerous sentences several times because they just really hit home with me and expressed a lot of the feelings and opinions I myself have felt in the past. This statement being very true in my mind, 'You were expected to keep on keeping on, in spite of the fact your insides felt like they'd been ripped out and splattered up against a brick wall'.
The actions of Susan have repercussions for many and none more so than Melissa. Oh poor, poor Melissa, so young and having to deal with so much. Her father away, her sister gone and her mother away in a world of pain and suffering. How Melissa coped was admirable in one way, trying to keep the whole show on the road and make like normal not even telling people in school the stark, true realities of her situation. The descriptions of trying to keep the house clean or not having enough food to eat were realistic and heartbreaking but I desperately wanted Melissa to confined in someone. She shouldn't have had to shoulder the burden on her own. She too was grieving and her mother should have been there for her. Melissa wasn't childish and was quite mature for her age but it was great to see that vulnerability coming through in her character and that she needed love, support and guidance just as much as Susan did.
Thankfully in steps kindly neighbour Jayne. She became like the grandmother figure of the book and offered solace and support and made an attempt to get things back on an even keel for the Hayes family. Jayne's own story offered light relief in contrast to the abyss the Susan had plummeted into. Jayne is seeking her own form of happiness, she is coming out of the cloud of getting over her husbands death several years before. The way she goes about it is typical of the dating scene these days and even if she is of the older generation what about it. Although her son Jason and daughter-in-law Irene are more interested in getting Jayne to sell her house rather than accepting that she deserves to be happy and contented. I didn't like either Jason or Irene who had no good intentions at all. OK I understood their hesitancy with regard to Jayne's dating option and what ensues. I felt myself it was a bit dodgy but maybe you shouldn't judge people on first glance rather persist and dig a little deeper. Taking risks may pay off after all but Jason and Irene had only one intention and they couldn't open up and embrace the fact Jayne was her own woman and perhaps wise beyond her years.
The third woman to feature in this book was Nancy, recently arrived in Dublin to start her new job as assistant director in the National Theatre. She rents a house by pure chance in Primrose Square. The owner unknown but he has always garnered the residents interest. For me Nancy's story was the weakest and I found myself focusing more on Susan, Jayne and Melissa. I knew she was fleeing from a nasty experience in London but I felt it was brushed under the carpet and when revealed it was too late in the book and I was far more consumed as to how things would turn out with the others. As for her interactions with the home owner, I guessed fairly early on what was going on there. I think the book would have worked fine without the inclusion of Nancy but I do appreciate the good effect she had on Melissa and how she helped her work through what her family was experiencing.
'Life has a funny way of going on, no matter how hard you struggle against it'. Yes it certainly does and boy do we rally against things moving forward when we wish everything to remain the same but that can't be possible and in this book Claudia Carroll shows us how it possible to come to acceptance and to heal in some way. A beautiful bond developed between the characters and it made the book a special ad engrossing read. There was the dark side to grief shown but also light as to how we can come through the other side. As in 'one day at a time. One foot in front of the other. And you will heal, trust me you have it in you'. Advice we can all take on board. I enjoyed my time spent in Primrose Square, the characters really do get inside your head and get you thinking and experiencing a wide range of emotions. It's definitely a book to curl up on the sofa with and lose yourself in the brilliant story.
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