A psychological thriller, THE SILENCE written by Susan Allott is full of suspense that leaves your head spinning with emotions. The author takes you back and forth between 1967 and 1997 throughout the pages to give the reader the background to this astonishing storyline. The main character, Isla, deals with memories of her childhood as she is called back home by her father. Allott takes you through the ups and downs from thirty years ago including the removal of the Aboriginal children in Australia. This is a moving debut novel from Susan Allott and an amazing one at that.
In the middle of the night, Isla Green gets a call from her father. One that makes her want to come home to Australia from England because it seems her dad may need her. She hasn’t been in a decade and really has no real desire to go but her father needs the support. A neighbor went missing thirty years ago and Isla’s father has been said to be the last one to see her. Her parents both clam that the neighbor, Mandy, moved with her husband thirty years ago. However, no one knows where Mandy disappeared to.
Mandy and her husband Steve have secrets that come out as well as Isla’s parents. There are things about both couples that Isla tries to piece together as memories come back. Could her father be responsible for Mandy’s disappearance as the police think? A powerful, heartbreaking story at times that will leave you wondering if we really know the ones that we see every day.
I learned some things about Australia and the Aboriginal children that I really didn’t know about from reading this thriller. I love it went an author adds some history to a fiction novel. Susan Allott did an amazing job with this novel by bringing the fears and broken dreams of the characters to the pages in a way that you feel their emotions. THE SILENCE is one thriller I will not forget, and I highly recommend that you put it on your reading list.
Combining the emotional power and dual narrative style of Before We Were Yours with the nuanced, layered, and atmospheric mystery of The Dry, a powerful debut novel revolving around a shocking disappearance, two neighbor families, and shameful secrets from the past that refuse to stay buried.
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 fled a broken marriage and 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.
Isla unwillingly plans to go back to Australia for the first time in a decade to support her father. The return to Sydney will plunge Isla 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? What will happen to their family if Isla’s worst fears are realized? 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?
Deftly exploring the deterioration of relationships and the devastating truths we keep from those we love, The Silence is a stunning debut from a promising literary star.
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