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#The Silence @SusanAllott @fictionpubteam @BoroughPress @RandomTTours
"Deftly exploring the deterioration of relationships and the devastating truths we keep from those we love; The Silence is a stunning debut from a rising literary star. "
Synopsis
It is 1997, and in a basement flat in Hackney Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father, phoning from Sydney.
30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of summer 1967, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared. At the time, it was thought she had gone to start a new life; but now Mandy’s family is trying to reconnect, and there is no trace of her.
Isla’s father Joe was allegedly the last person to see her alive, and now he’s under suspicion of murder. Reluctantly, Isla goes back to Australia for the first time in a decade.
The return to Sydney will plunge her deep into the past, to a quiet street by the sea where two couples live side by side. Isla’s parents, Louisa and Joe, have recently emigrated from England — a move that has left Louisa miserably homesick while Joe embraces this new life. Next door, Steve and Mandy are equally troubled.
Mandy doesn’t want a baby, even though Steve — a cop trying to hold it together under the pressures of the job — is desperate to become a father. The more Isla asks about the past, the more she learns: about both young couples and the secrets each marriage bore.
Could her father be capable of doing something terrible? How much does her mother know? And is there another secret in this community, one which goes deeper into Australia’s colonial past, which has held them in a conspiracy of silence?
My Review
This is a real roller-coaster of a thriller set in Australia.
When Isla receives a phone call in the middle of the night from her father in Australia, she is not ready for the past to bubble up as it does.
30 years go their neighbour, Mandy disappeared, it is assumed she left for a new life, but is now suspected to have been murdered.
As Isla’s father was the last to have seen her before she disappeared but now it is classed that he was the last to see her alive and he is the prime suspect in her murder.
Isla returns to Australia to support her father and to find out what really happened, but is any of these 2 families tied together through friendship and tragedy ready for the past to come back to hunt them?.
This is read packed with tension and mystery, know one is been honest and the lies and secrets held are at bursting point and you are just ready for the lives of these characters to implode with the truth.
A story of 2 families told through 2 timelines fantastically written with a compelling sub plot in the forced removal of Aboriginal children, I am sad to say this is something i have never heard of before and I was utterly heartbroken reading this, but this story lead me to reading and researching more on this event or crime as it should be called. So i have this read to thank for a new learning and understanding of this crime.
Challenging and compelling this read ticks all the boxes in this genre a real gem!
Author Bio
Susan Allott is from the UK but spent part of her twenties in Australia, desperately homesick but trying to make Sydney her home.
In 2016 she completed the Faber Academy course, during which she started writing this novel. She now lives in south London with her two children and her very Australian husband.
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Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.
All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.
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