An Irish community choir is about to perform its end-of-summer concert but one of its singers, Jane, hasn’t turned up. The story then backtracks six weeks and introduces us to a raft of characters. Choir leader Christopher is a somewhat grumpy character, who doesn’t get off on the right foot with his new next-door-neighbour, an American woman named Freddie, when her young daughter comes calling in his yard. House cleaner Molly sees a young boy who she thinks may be her grandson and wonders if this is why her son Philip disappeared without a word to New Zealand five years ago. Meanwhile her daughter, Emily, can’t believe her mother wants to set her up with handyman Clem.
This engaging book covers several storylines and although the transitions between the different characters sometimes wasn’t so smooth, the connection between them all was cleverly plotted.
The Street Where You Live, by Roisin Meaney, is centred around the members of a choir. The summary says: "Over six weeks of summer, during the country's hottest heatwave in years, members of a choir prepare for an end of summer concert, but as the notes soar so, too do the scandals and secrets...
Molly sees a young boy who she's convinced is her grandson but how does she find out the truth when her son Philip ran away to New Zealand five years ago? Could he have fathered a son and then vanished? And is he ever going to return?
Meanwhile Molly's daughter Emily has fallen in love for the second time in her life. Except this time it's with the wrong man ...
While handsome and dynamic Christopher, choir leader, has closed off his heart to relationships a long time ago, making do with snatched trysts with married Jane, the newest member of the choir. It's exactly the level of commitment he wants and needs - or is it?
Then there's Clem, nursing his own private heartache, and Freddie, the children's author, who has just moved to Ireland from America with her young daughter in tow.
As the heatwave breaks, so too does the veneer of calm in the small town. As performance night approaches, the members of the choir discover that their lives intertwine more than they could ever have imagined - but are the inhabitants of the town ready for what happens next?" The Street Where You Live is out in June 2017.