Emma's Review: The Houseshare by Fiona O'Brien

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Number 24 Ulysses Crescent is an elegant three storey mansion overlooking the beautiful Dublin Bay. Converted into luxurious seaview apartments, it's now home to a close-knit group of tenants ...

There's former style icon Evelyn, who lives life as vibrantly as ever, not knowing her past is about to catch up with her; enigmatic sculptor Mike, who uses his art as a way to wrestle with his ghosts; café-owner Nessa whose gift for reading the Tarot hasn't yet shown her if she'll find love; and Bruce and Stella, recently separated and now co-parenting their toddler from separate flats.

Then there's Morah, the caretaker, who keeps a watchful eye on everyone - especially, for reasons only known to herself, the irrepressible Evelyn.

When Evelyn's granddaughter Truth, a high-flying London lawyer, arrives for the summer desperate to escape an online hate campaign, the residents of Number 24 are about to discover that the past is never truly over, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

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Valentine Feature Week Review: Fiona O'Brien - The Love Book

In 1980, three schoolgirls visit St. Valentine's shrine in Dublin, to write their petitions for love. By 2010, these same women have discovered that finding love was the easy part - it's what you do with it once you've found it that's tricky.

When one of the women returns home unexpectedly from California, all three are forced to examine their choices, loves, and lives, which have proved surprising, and in some ways, precarious. So much for St. Valentine - if the saint has taught them anything about love - it's be careful what you wish for . . .

But real love is always a work in progress - and Vonnie, Abby and Diana must learn they need to open their eyes and more especially their hearts - because St. Valentine has some unfinished business with them . . .