The Silence is a riveting novel partly inspired by the Australian Government practise of removing Aboriginal children, known as the Stolen Generations, from their families and placing them in state Homes.

It is 1997 and Isla leaves London to be with her father in Australia where he is suspected in the disappearance of his next-door neighbour, Mandy, thirty years before. The story tells of the difficult marriage between Isla's parents, who emigrated to Australia from the UK, and the marriage of Mandy and her policeman husband Steve, whose job was to remove Aboriginal children from their families.

I found this an excellent book in how the characters are portrayed; also the effect of the disastrous policy towards the indigenous people of Australia on one man, and his inevitable breakdown.

This book deserves all the awards in 2020 and I wish it every success. Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollinsUK for the opportunity to read and review The Silence.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Never knowing which way it was going to go. It was fast paced. Easy to read. Nice characters with a past. Love a wee mystery in there

I’m being spoilt with great reads lately and here is another one to watch in 2020, Susan Allott’s “The Silence” a quietly emotional and beautifully written novel which has a dark sense of nostalgia to it even as it touches on deeply emotive issues.

Two families live side by side, one of their number disappears, a disappearance not noted until over 30 years later. Enter Isla, drawn back to the childhood home she has avoided, thrown by emerging secrets and her own jagged memories..

The Silence revisits a time in Australian history that I knew nothing about, the author captures the sense of time and place pitch perfectly, moving seamlessly between past and present until the truth comes out into the light. The characters are drawn with an intriguing, authentic set of layers, there is a sense throughout that something bad is coming and in the end this is a classic character drama playing out on a wide canvas, holding the reader in it’s grip from first page to last.

I thought it was excellent, disturbing yet emotionally resonant, descriptively immersive and with an unforgettable finale.

Highly Recommended.

This book isn't your typical suspensive thriller or whodunnit, its much more than that. When Mandy goes missing, it is assumed that Joe, her neighbour, is the killer as he is the last person who saw her alive. Isla, Joe's daughter, comes home from London back to Australia to help her parents, but also find out more about Mandy and her husband, Steve.

Steve is a policeman and works in the forced captivation of Aboriginal Children. this book tells a story about the children who were taken, and in the end at the authors note, Allott talks about how the Australian government have publicly apologised, but the British Gov hasn't. Nor do we Brits really discuss our role in the colonisation and forced captivation and genocide of the Aboriginee's.

So thank you Allot for telling their story. Whilst it must be said, this book focuses more on Mandy, her husband, and her neighbours, and the circumstances of her being missing, it does then focus on the aboriginal families lives, but is more heavily weighted on Mandy and family.
Nonetheless I think it is a very important book, and a great, gripping read.