The publisher’s blurb promises that there are many stories behind the closed doors of Primrose Square, Dublin and this novel follows four main characters. Susan is trying to come to terms with the death, almost a year earlier, of her elder teenage daughter, Ella. She believes that Ella’s boyfriend was responsible and spends hours standing outside his house, just watching, even though she is constantly being moved on by the police. Whilst she is obsessed with her vigil, or virtually comatose as a result of her addiction to tranquillisers, her twelve-year-old younger daughter Melissa is trying to keep up a semblance of normality at home. She misses her big sister and would like to be able to help her mother but feels powerless to do so. She also misses her father who is in the army and posted abroad; although she speaks to him every day she feels she must pretend that everything is alright at home, that she and her mother are OK. She has become very good at pretending. Elderly widow Jayne, lives next door and tries to offer whatever support she can to Melissa and Susan but she has recently met someone else and needs to share this momentous news with her selfish son and self-obsessed daughter in law. Nancy is a young, aspiring theatre director who has taken a job in Dublin to escape a scandal in London and lives in fear that her past will catch up with her.
The story follows these main characters as their relationships develop and as each confronts and comes to terms with the challenges and changes they are facing. At its heart it is a story about the power of female friendships, how people deal with personal crises and change, the need for honesty in relationships and the need for people to take risks if they are to move forward. I thought that the author manged to create reasonably credible characters to carry her explorations of family relationships, loss, grief and the mourning process. This was helped by the fact that the story was told from multiple perspectives, a literary device which enabled past events to be revealed in a gradual and, occasionally, surprising way. Although there were moments when I started to feel that the characters were in danger of becoming stereotypical, on balance I think that the author just managed to avoid this pitfall! There were some enjoyable moments of humour, especially when Jayne had conversations with Tom, her late husband whose ashes were in an urn on a shelf above the television! However, although the cover of the book might suggest this is just a feel-good, light-hearted read, it is in fact a surprisingly thought-provoking and insightful story which explores some dark themes.