Brighton Hills appears to be the perfect neighborhood. A gated community on the Oregon coast, it boasts stunning vistas and luxury homes. Even the neighbors are seemingly perfect. Helping each other out and keeping an eye on one another. But are some watching closer than they’d like?
Cora Holmon is positive her husband Finn is cheating on her and she just hasn’t found the proof yet. So when her neighbor and best friend, Paige Moretti, decides to try and trap Finn in order to finally provide Cora with that proof, she agrees.
Paige, who is separated from her husband Grant, has just lost her son, Caleb, to a hit-and-run in their own neighborhood the previous year. In all that time, the police have come no closer to catching the perpetrator. Between the loss and not knowing who killed her child, Paige has been dealing with an all-consuming grief that makes her perhaps do things she shouldn’t. Like spying on her neighbors, searching for Caleb’s killer, and hatching the plan to catch Finn.
Across the street, however, things are perhaps just as, if not more, imperfect. Georgia Kinney, a young mother to baby Avery, seems to never leave her house and avoids the neighbors. But Cora is determined to befriend her reclusive neighbor. As the days pass though, she notices that Georgia is acting more and more strangely. What could she be hiding?
What each of them share are the never ending secrets that bubble under the surface. Because despite the beautiful surroundings and picturesque views, Brighton Hills hides some ugly truths. As those secrets slowly start to reveal themselves, life will never be the same. Just how much damage will they do?
What a truly terrifying tale. On a Quiet Street is a complex tale of paranoia, desperation, and women helping women. One that held my attention from the very first page and kept it until the very last. With twists aplenty and told in a three-way point-of-view structure that alternates between the women at the center of this story, it was one heck of a shocking tale. Included in that was an ending where even when you think it’s over, it isn’t—as there’s just one more huge surprise waiting.
From the very beginning, each of the women (Paige, Cora, and Georgia) have secrets they’re determined to kept hidden and scores they’re trying to settle. Between Paige’s reckless desperation to find her son’s murderer to Cora‘s paranoia surrounding her certainty that her husband was unfaithful, they all displayed characteristics that were authentic and believable. But perhaps a tad extreme. And I found myself swinging from sympathy to shock to horror at their actions that made me dislike them. But, by the end, I supported each woman and was cheering them on.
Independent from the cheating and three-way love triangle, this story focused on harder themes: physical and mental abuse, gaslighting, and overwhelming grief. The world Georgia inhabited was particularly shocking, one that is all too possible and realistic (which alone is horrifying). But I don’t want to say too much on this and spoil the plot. The only aspect I could have done without was the excessive focus on cheating spouses (with their friend’s husbands no less). All said and done, I absolutely inhaled this book and cannot wait for Seraphina Nova Glass’s next book. Until then, I’m heading to read all of her backlist! Rating of 5 stars.
Trigger warning: hit-and-run death, loss of a child, physical and mental spousal abuse, controlling relationship, infidelity