• 5 Stars
• Release date: 8th June
• Buy on Amazon

I loved this book, I’ve never read much thriller before but I definitely want to read more! I read this over a couple of days with only sleep getting in the way!

What I’ve realised as I start to read more and more books is that I really enjoy a multi narrator style. In The Silence the chapters are told by either Gail Reynolds, who in the first chapter of the book is sexually assaulted, DS Shona White, who is advised to talk Gail out of taking her complaint further due to the low solve rates of these crimes and the affect they’d have on the station’s rating. Finally the the assailant tells his story of what turned him from an innocent boy to a rapist.

His chapters were so interesting, if the book had been told in a linear way there is always the risk that you might have felt sorry for him but by starting with the assault first and then straight to Gail’s experience as she tries to report it to the police, you already feel so much anger towards him and the system that you never feel any sympathy towards him at all.

Gail’s chapters are unusual in that she spends a lot of time talking to her attacker, wondering if he’s watching her, is he someone she’s seen in the seaside town that she lives in, is it someone she knows, a customer at one of the many jobs she drifts to and from as she struggles to cope following the attack. And although Shona has her chapters that talk about what she’s doing, after being riddled with guilt from not taking Gail’s initial complaint further, Gail’s chapters talk about the investigation more and give more depth to it.

Very early on in the book there is a time jump of three years as Gail finds – through a support group of sexual assault survivors – someone with a story the same as hers, showing they were attacked by the same man. They form a friendship from this shared experience, and dig deeper into what could be the connection between them, that ultimately leads to revenge.

I genuinely loved this book and found it very easy to read and a page turner.

I would 100% recommend it to everyone I know, but do seek out content warnings.