By: Carla Kovach
Narrator: Annette Chown
ISBN: 9781835251263
Publisher: Bookouture | Dreamscape Select
Publication Date: 01/15/2024
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: 4 Stars (ARC)
Every family has its secrets. Some are more deadly than others…
I live on a quiet tree-lined street with my perfect husband Cain. But when 18-year-old Charlotte knocks on the front door, what she says has me questioning just how well I really know my husband.
‘I was adopted as a baby and I’m looking for my biological parents. I was told they live here.’
My heart races as I fear Cain has been keeping a huge secret from me. Does he have a child he never told me about? And has he been lying all these years?
I can’t trust anything Cain says. Desperate for answers, I agree to meet Charlotte in secret. But it’s Charlotte who is full of questions: about our lives, our relationship. It’s only when she lets slip the name of the road I used to live on, that I realise how much she knows about me, too…
Cold fear floods through my body. My husband may not have told the truth, but his lies are nothing compared to mine. If Charlotte knows my darkest secret, my whole life could fall apart. How far will I have to go to keep the truth hidden?
If you loved The Housemaid, The Perfect Marriage and Gone Girl you will be absolutely gripped by this heart-stopping psychological thriller.
My Review
Carla Kovach's ON A QUIET STREET is a must-read domestic suspense filled with twists, turns, and unreliable narrators. With a web of family secrets, lies, and deceit from past generations that converge and spiral out of control with a final jaw-dropping twist.
How far will these twisted families go to keep their dark secrets?
Leah is married to Cain. Leah has not had an easy past. When she was sixteen years old, a family friend raped her, and no one believed her, not even her mother. The rapist's father looked on from another room while Leah begged him to stop.
This trauma has affected her throughout her life. Now, her cheating husband wants a baby, but due to this (she holds a secret), she is not having a baby with him. Plus, he is a liar and cheat.
She wanted the baby back years ago but was not sure how to take care of it; she kept her pregnancy hidden until it was too late.
The devious mother, Jane, developed a plan without Leah's knowledge. Leah thought her baby had died and was buried in her mom's garden at the Larrison House under the daffodils. She has mourned her baby her entire life.
However, years later, three eighteen-year-old girls (Angel, Charlotte, and Freya) who are friends show up at her doorstep, claiming she is the mother.
How can this be? Her baby died, or so she was told. The only friend Leah has now is her best friend, Zara.
From past to present, we learn of Leah's past and her horrific mother, Jean, and their neighbors, the Pearsons.
Jean is now dying of cancer and has reached out to her granddaughter to tell her the truth before she dies. She hires her to take care of her in her final days. Can this young girl believe her?
However, Jean is estranged from Leah and keeps her in the dark.
After her mom passes and inherits the house, she gets a visit from this girl. The three girls are friends and not being honest or forthcoming. Jean tells nothing but lies.
In the meantime, Cain lies and has affairs. Then a woman Rosie and Derren interject themselves into Leah's life. Leah's haunted past returns.
The granddaughter does not know whom to believe and devises a plan with her friends. Did her mom want her? Who are her real parents? Were her adoptive parents in on the plan?
However, the plan backfires when a DNA test is done.
Did Leah's baby Sophie live, and if so, why was she told she died? Who has been raising her, and who is buried in Jean's backyard under the daffodils if she is alive?
Then, someone is out to take them down to keep their lives free of complications and hide the secrets of the past.
Will mother and daughter be reunited before it is too late?
INTENSE AND GRIPPING!
ON A QUIET STREET is a dark, complex, twisty, and multi-layered psychological thriller of family and the lies they tell that spiral down through generations.
The author keeps you cleverly in the dark and suspense of the girl's name and then throws a final twist at the end. How far will they go to keep their secrets?
I enjoyed ON A QUIET STREET even though it was frustrating at times and did not have a lot of likable characters. Jean was a creepy character, as the house and the creepy daffodil garden grave. I wish it had a little humor to balance the dark family dysfunction.
For fans of Freida McFadden, Emily Shiner, Miranda Rijks, Daniel Hurst, and K.L. Slater. My first book by the author, and I'm looking forward to reading more!
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for a gifted digital advanced reading copy for an honest opinion.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Jan 15, 2024
About the Author
Carla Kovach is a USA Today bestselling author from the UK and is published by Bookouture, Sphere, Boekerij and Virualo. Her DI Gina Harte series has been translated into Dutch and Polish.
As well as novels, she has also written stage and screenplays. WEBSITE
