Welcome to Primrose Street, where neighbours share close interactions but know very little of each other. Only the maple trees that have lined the road for decades know their decisions, indiscretions, secrets, joys, and pains.
From fifty-year residents Charlie and Cora and their grandson Ronald, to newcomer Sofia and her son Nicolas, to best friends Tabitha and Dayna, the residents of Primrose Street go about their daily lives-shopping, attending school, meeting at cafés, smiling as they pass on the sidewalk-all the while remaining invisible to one another.
Only when an invitation arrives in their mailboxes must the residents of Primrose Street decide whether to allow authenticity into their lives and neighbourhood or remain limited in their relationships and thereby to themselves.
Drawing comparisons to Maeve Binchy and Elizabeth Strout for its clear-eyed characterizations of everyday people, Marina L. Reed's writing sheds light on questions that haunt us and exposes the poison of secrets. Primrose Street is everyone's street, where the ebb and flow of daily experiences can bring people together and miracles are still possible.
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[The maple trees have watched over the residents of Primrose Street for almost a hundred years] ***(Blue Moon Publishers, 30 October 2018, ebook, 260 pages, ARC from publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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Living somewhere like Primrose Street is my idea of hell but each to their own. I have a penchant for books set in small towns where people have lived for generations and keep each other's secrets. Blame it on Stephen King. Primrose Street is the perfect setting for light and dark aspects of human nature to exist. This is not so much a novel as a series of vignettes focusing of the lives of people living on the street, some of whom have pretty dark secrets. Alternative chapters focus on the ancient trees that grow in the street and attempt to make them appear sentient as if they can understand human life. This doesn't really work for me but does offer an interesting perspective on the events in Primrose Street. This is a good book, just the right amount of dark and intense at times.
