Thursday, July 25, 2019

Review - The Silent Ones

Title:   The Silent Ones
Author:  K.L Slater
Genre:   Psychological Thriller
Publisher:  Bookouture
Format:  Kindle ARC
No. of Pages:   324 
Date of Publication:  July 24, 2019
My Rating:  4.5 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

This morning, I was packing up lunches, ironing, putting on the laundry I should have done last night. Now my precious daughter is accused of murder.

When ten-year-old cousins Maddy and Brianna are arrested for a terrible crime, Maddy’s mother Juliet cannot believe it. How could her bright, joyful daughter be capable of such a thing?   

As the small village community recoils in horror, the pressure of the tragedy blows Juliet and her sister’s lives apart.  And things get even worse when their daughters retreat into a self-imposed silence. Can anyone reach Maddy and discover the truth before her fate is sealed?

Juliet is crushed. Nothing will ever be the same for her darling girl.  But she knows that to find out what really happened that day, she and her sister must unlock the secrets of their own terrible past, a past they swore never to speak about again …

The most unputdownable psychological thriller you’ll read this year from the bestselling author K.L. Slater. If you love The Wife Between Us or Gone Girl, you’ll be totally hooked on The Silent Ones.


MY THOUGHTS:

Ten-year-old cousins Maddy and Brianna are rather bored and have managed to sneak away to visit an elderly woman named Bessie. This was something the girls often did. They were watched by their grandmother, who obviously wasn't paying close enough attention. The girls were up to no good and have just been arrested for harming Bessie. When Bessie succumbs to her injuries, the charge is raised to murder.

However, neither girl will talk, not to the police, not even to their parents. Their mothers, Juliet and Chloe, feel their daughters could never have committed this act. Juliet and Chloe had a bit of a strained relationship as it was, but with their girls not saying a word, things begin to deteriorate between them.

Time drags on while they are trying to get the girls to talk, Juliet is especially haunted by the family's past. This very past has affected Juliet more than any member of the family, and this ultimately has changed her relationship with husband Tom. The combined strain of the murder accusation, their daughter's silence and her childhood past is about to unravel Juliet.

I was on tenterhooks while reading The Silent Ones. It was so tragic with the girls being so quiet, but as the recollections of the past were revealed, my sadness increased. The story was a fast-moving one and had some powerful revelations and long-hidden secrets revealed as well as a shocker a conclusion, one that left me applauding and a bit emotional.

This was another excellent book by K.L. Slater, and I literally lost sleep as I read it from cover-to-cover. I look forward to reading more by her soon.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kim is the million-copy bestselling author of eight psychological crime thrillers.

Her titles are published in eBook by Bookouture and in paperback by Sphere (UK) and Grand Central (USA).

For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents and collected an impressive stack of rejection slips. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.

Before graduating in 2012, she gained literary agent representation and a book deal. As Kim says, 'it was a fairytale ... at the end of a very long road!'

Kim is a full-time writer. She has one daughter, two stepsons and lives with her husband in Nottingham and Yorkshire.



 

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