Maybe I’m scared to be happy…

Meet Hannah – she’s been her mum’s sole carer since she was eighteen. Now alone after Martha’s sudden death, Hannah feels lost in the only place she’s known as home, Hope Street. Coming up to a milestone birthday, she’s wondering what her purpose in life is.

Meet Doug – a workaholic, he’s in the office from dusk ’til dawn, and when he has a heart attack. Now on the mend, he needs to de-stress his life and focus on living it, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Doug moves to Hope Street, number 35. Hannah lives at number 34, directly opposite. From the moment they meet, there’s a spark.

But there are secrets too. Hannah’s mum has been keeping something from her, her sister left over twenty years ago, and there can’t be such a simple reason why Doug has moved to Somerley. Can there?

The Man Across the Street is the first of a new series by bestselling author, Marcie Steele. It features a host of characters living on Hope Street in the market town of Somerley, also featured in The Somerley Series. Each character will have their own standalone story in books to follow.

'The Man Across the Street' is the first book in a new series of books set in Hope Street in Somerley, a market town in England. 

I love books which are part of a series, based in a village or, as this one, a street. I enjoy meeting the characters and having the opputunity to learn more about the residents, their back stories and watching them following their dreams or relationships developing or falling part. I am looking forward to returning to Hope Street again in future books.

The book is an easy read and is relatable to real life, I can picture Hope Street and Hannah and Doug are both characters who could easily live next door to its reader. Marcie Steele has created a fantastic setting and cast of characters.

Marcie Steel is actually Mel Sharratt, a fantastic crime author, who has written a number of gritty crime novels. It is difficult to imagine that this cosy read has written by the same person but they are and I enjoy both sides of Mel's writing!

Thank you to the publisher and to Sarah Hardy of Books on the Bright Side Publicity and PR for inviting me to take part in the blog tour and for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.