The House Across the Street by Lesley Pearse

The enthralling new novel from the ten-million-copy, Number One bestselling author.

Twenty-three year old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children.

Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?

Then one night, the house burns down. In the wreckage, the bodies of Gloria and her daughter are found. Katy is sure the unexplained visitors must be responsible until her father is arrested and charged with murder. Have the police arrested the correct person? Are the rest of the street safe? Can Katy find the truth before it's too late?

Lesley Pearse

Formats & editions

Paperback

9781405935371

May 21, 2019

Michael Joseph

368 pages

RRP $19.99
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Trade Paperback

9780718189259

September 17, 2018

Michael Joseph

352 pages

RRP $32.99
Online retailers
Or

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Hardback

9780718189242

September 15, 2018

Michael Joseph

352 pages

RRP $45.00
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Or

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Extract

Prologue

Bexhill-on-Sea, 1964

At the bang of a car door out in the street, Katy glanced out of the bedroom window.

It was the old black Humber she’d seen several times before, and two women were getting out and walking up the garden path of the house opposite. She was doing some ironing up in the front guest room; her own bedroom was at the back of the house and all it overlooked was the garden. Her younger brother, Rob, claimed she was nosy, always people-watching, fascinated by their comings and goings. She denied this, but she did find the house across the street very mysterious.

Mrs Gloria Reynolds, the owner, had a lovely dress shop in town called Gloria’s Gowns, just two doors away from the firm of solicitors where Katy worked as a secretary. Her shop, and the fact that she was a very glamorous divorcee, was more than enough to make her interesting to Katy, but the clincher was that she had the oddest visitors and guests calling at her house.