The Street Where You Live by Roisin Meaney

This is exactly what I have come to expect from Roisin Meaney, a group of disparate characters who are linked through circumstance or location.  The link this time comes from the Amateur Choir that Molly and Emily are part of and then spreads to include customers at the Supermarket where Emily is a check-out girl and Christopher (the choir leader) is the Manager and clients of Molly's house cleaning service.

The characterisation is, as always excellent, and they are living and breathing flawed people from all walks of life.  Unfortunately, The Street Where You Live, just felt much, much bleaker than the other novels I have read by this author.  There are moments of romance but not much jollity along the way and although I enjoyed reading about the inhabitants of this small Irish town I did find it hard to raise even a rueful smile throughout the book.

It is entertaining and it is a very good study of ordinary people doing ordinary things.  The only extraordinary thing about them is quite how dismal they are, maybe the unrelenting sunshine has something to do with that - we just don't get long, hot summers in the United Kingdom and Ireland.  I also found the lack of chapters to be a hindrance to reading anywhere other than from the safety of my couch.  The first "chapter" is approximately half the book and this makes finding the ideal place to stop quite difficult in a "but how will I know where I was up to way" and not the preferred "Oooh just one more chapter" way.

Sadly not the strongest of her tales due to how unrelentingly gloomy I found it all.

**Review originally published January 23rd, 2018**