When 13 year old Chloe is murdered, the residents of her street must try to hide their own secrets as the police try to solve the crime. New home owners, Nina and Conrad are soon wondering what kind of street they’ve moved into! The Promise is set in 1914 in London and reunites the reader with Belle Reilly in this sequel to Belle. Belle has finally found happiness and a life she has always wanted thanks to her husband Jimmy. Now she has achieved another dream that she has always wanted to follow; owning and running a hat shop. But when the first world war starts to slowly arrive like a ship on the horizon, Belle’s crazy life is about to change in ways that she never even saw coming. Dan finds them a cheap but squalid flat on Dale street in a notoriously seedy part of town with inhabitants who have seen many hardships. Belle is set in London in 1910 and is the debut novel in the Belle series by Lesley Pearse. Belle is 15 years old at the time of this novel. As a young girl, she has lived in the Seven Dials in a brothel for all of her life and for most of it had no idea what was really going on in the name of commerce upstairs.

Deception is Lesley Pearse's 30th book. What an achievement! She's been a favourite of mine since the beginning and I think that Deception is the best of her most recent books. It has what I love about Pearse's books: the tough upbringing, the family dramas, and a thumping good storyline. In a split second Betty decides she's had enough and decides to run seizing the chance of escape. Ending up in Bristol things at first get worse for her. Changing her name to Mabel she finds work and tentatively makes new friends. Gradually we see her take control of her new life, nevertheless always looking over her shoulder in the fear of being found out, The world thinks she perished in the sea as her old home was swept away, but she lived to battle on and this is the story of her new life.She already knows her mother was manipulative at times, vain, very secretive and never spoke of the past. Have things ever got so bad for you that you wish you could just run away from your life and start again? Well, that's what happens to Betty Wellows. The daughter of a fisherman, she lives in a small coastal hamlet, where her husband has returned from world war one a shaken shell of an invalid who never speaks, doesn't recognise his wife and needs 24 hour care and spoon feeding. Bettys Mother in law Agnes is a harsh harridan from hell who detests her daughter in law and makes every second of her life a misery. The only escape Betty has is her late fathers tumbledown old cottage. When this is being demolished by a ferocious storm Agnes pushes Betty to go and get her belongings despite it being extremely dangerous. Set in the 1950s and beginning on Coronation Day in 1953, Without A Trace is a story populated by colourful characters who the reader will really care about. Though the themes in this story are upsetting, they are offset by the strength of the characters. Eve is never less than a sympathetic character. The bleakness of her life with Don and her subsequent struggles are lightened not only by her own courage and determination, but by the strength of the other characters in the book, who are a testament to the fundamental good heartedness of most people. Alice always knew there was something strange with her mum, she ever liked to talk about her life before Ralph, and so Alice decides to find out the whole story. Alice’s investigations take her on a journey whereby she discovers her mum’s chequered past and meets many of the people who were involved in her earlier life. As Alice’s trip into her mother’s life comes to a close, she must weigh up her conscientious and decide just how much she will confront her dad Ralph with, and how much he already knows.

Fifi's mother didn't give Dan a chance and condemned their relationship from the start due to Dan's lower social status. Fifi being madly in love and tired of her mother's interference in her life, throws all caution to the wind and marries Dan after a few months of dating. The move into a cheap flat in Bristol and start a happy life together.However, the delivery of this is excruciatingly bad. The story is told largely in large sections of unbelievable exposition, such as Nina recalling when her husband told her about his mother’s and his imperious, neglectful stepfather, and his time at boarding school, over several paragraphs as she thinks about why he finds crimes against children distressing. The whole book is like, horribly clunky telling instead of showing, which leaves the characters very one dimensional. There’s no nuance or discovery. It leaves the situation that while the reader is told repeatedly that Conrad is wonderful and caring and insightful, his actual actions and comments come over as sinister and coercive. [Spoiler: that doesn’t turn out to be a plot twist.] Fifi isn't your average girl of the 1960s, she has a career and not falling over herself to get married. When she meets Dan she risks further disapproval from her mother and frozen out from her family, true love will always win. Dan trys to give Fifi everything she deserves, coming from money Fifi has always known the best, choosing Dan introduces her to a new way of life. Moving to London to find work, Fifi follows her husband and meet some of the poorest people and conditions but meets people who teach her about real life. The darker side of the street comes to light, Fifi realises that she is not only next to criminals but a family who abuse their children, exploit anyone who is naive enough to get in their way and who liase with some very dangerous people.