When a three-story historic government building in Niagara Falls, Ontario is redeveloped into condominiums, it attracts a curious array of ten residents. A feisty, eighty-old widow, who resents her children for moving her out of her family home, befriends another resident–a retired, brokenhearted Italian immigrant. Two middle-aged sisters, who don’t like each other much, are forced to live together in order to comply with their mother’s will. The male counterpart of a pair of young, doting lovers has a serious case of OCD but won’t admit to it or accept any help. A policeman who works long shifts makes his wife feel more single than married. A thirty-five-year-old account manager, who is full of himself and considers the Park Street building below his social status, has his eye on another one of the residents. The final resident, a librarian, hopes her move will provide the new lease on life she so desperately needs.
Some of the secrets in Yvonne Van Lankveld’s THE PARK STREET SECRETS are obvious; others not so much, even to the characters themselves. This is what makes the story so engaging. The cast members in the story are unique, interesting, and deftly painted. Their backstory, goals, strengths, and weaknesses add decisive depth to their personality. One of the things that makes this story intriguing is how the characters change and grow within each situation. When additional people are added to the mix–a clueless building project manager, an attorney with an unconventional tie to one of the residents, an ex-wife who is not so “ex,” a remorseful ex-fiancé, and cats named Mona Lisa and Michelangelo–the relationships spring to life. The Park Street building setting provides a significant backdrop for the story with regard to the varied personalities and actions–the characters essentially becoming a product of their environment. This skillful use of setting adds to the development of the characters.
Van Lankveld’s writing is logically-structured and engaging with a high level of fluency. She keeps back story and exposition to a minimum. Maintaining the right balance between action, description, and dialogue results in fluidity and is a judicious way of tying together all the story elements. Clear, concise wording and effective transitions between scenes, events, and characters help to maintain a smooth narrative flow. Her use of persuasive description creates an accurate, three-dimensional impression in each scene and the feeling of the scenes onto the page. Slice-of-life stories are challenging to write in that it’s difficult to make someone’s day-to-day, often mundane life interesting enough to attract readers. But Van Lankveld does exactly that by crafting unusual and amusing characters, developing compelling relationships between the characters and creating a relevant setting in which the relationships take place.
Yvonne Van Lankveld’s THE PARK STREET SECRETS is a well-written, well-thought-out, slice of life story fraught with engaging characters and situations.
~Florence Osmund for IndieReader