On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass is a thriller that has a great surface story and an even better undercurrent.
In other words, the different levels of this book are nuanced but complimentary. It makes for one heck of a novel.
Everyone has secrets, and nobody is telling the entire truth. In some ways, that makes each of the characters unreliable narrators. But that’s too simplistic.
There are layers to each of the main characters’ stories and they all intertwine seamlessly. But the reader doesn’t thoroughly understand that until they’re well into the book.
After a mysterious prologue, the action unfolds from alternating points of view between Paige, Cora, and Georgia. It took me a while to get a full feeling for each of them beyond their introductions.
I think that was by design, because of the secrets that each of them held. It wouldn’t be a thriller without that!
It is actually a little difficult to write this review because there is so much detail, but also so much underneath the surface, that it would be easy to give something away.
Suffice to say that everything is really complicated until about halfway through when threads start to unravel, and the reader starts to find out the truth about…everything.
Like another book I recently read, there seems to be a bit of “men are bad” thing going on here. Of the three husbands to the three main characters, only Paige’s husband (Grant) isn’t a complete jerk (and that’s going easy on the other two).
But even he has his faults. But that’s okay because the women do too.
Once the revelations start to appear, the action really picks up and the last third of the book is a true page-turner. That’s not to say that the beginning wasn’t as well. But that was more “draw you in slowly with intrigue” page-turning, not “omg, what happens next!” page-turning thriller.
The author does a fantastic job of illustrating how everyone has secrets of some kind, and you never really know what the truth is. Well, that, and you’ll probably start looking at your neighbors differently, wondering what they may be hiding.
Check out these other thrillers from Seraphina Nova Glass: Such a Good Wife and Someone’s Listening
Facebook: Seraphina Nova Glass: Author
Author Bio:
Seraphina Nova Glass is a professor and playwright-in-residence at the University of Texas, Arlington. She teaches film studies and playwriting. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Smith College, and she’s also a screenwriter and award-winning playwright.
