The House at the End of Hope Street

Menna Van Praag's The House at the End of Hope Street first crossed my radar when my book club was trying to choose a book set on another continent.  After a hilarious discussion about how Canada is not, in fact, on another continent, we eventually settled on The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, which was set in France, and a fairly interesting historical novel about a female spy.

I was interested in The House at the End of Hope Street, however, and when I recently stumbled on it in a bargain book bin at Stop and Shop, I grabbed it.  The premise intrigued me.  Main character Alba finds herself at a loss when she suffers "the Worst Event of Her Life" and stumbles upon a house she had never noticed before.  The proprietress of the house, Peggy, tells her she can stay for ninety-nine nights, rent-free, and use the time to turn her life around.

Thousands of women have stayed there over the years, many of them famous.  Currently sharing the house with Alba and Peggy are Carmen, a singer running from a secret, and Greer, an actress desperate to get her career on track.  Stella, a ghost that only Alba seems to see, inhabits the kitchen sink.

Alba goes to bed the first night and wakes up in the morning to find her bedroom lined with shelves full of every book she's ever read.  To a confirmed bibliophile like myself, this would be paradise.  As Alba undergoes her personal transformation, the books change to fit her needs.  The house is magical, and not above sending advice in the form of mysteriously appearing notes.  Who wouldn't want to live in a house like that?

Overall, I enjoyed following the lives of the four women in the house, seeing how their interactions, as well as the house's influence, got them on to their future paths.  The characters were well developed and the little tidbits of historical facts about the photograph women, who by the way can speak to the house's residents, were interesting as well.