Joy has had a tragic life which is detailed in this very gripping story. It begins with Gwen, Joy's mother, meeting and marrying George and then switches between the early years of their marriage, Joy's childhood and the present day. It is a story of traumatic abuse and how that impacts on the mind of a young child.

George is a domineering character who rules his house strictly using violence to maintain control. Gwen and the children fear him with good reason. But George is a religious man and an active member of the church so to all the other villagers he is a wonderful caring man which leaves his family alone to cope with the violence.

A very interesting story with characters that develop well. The story has many twists and turns that are totally unexpected and the suspense builds all the way to the end.

A very interesting and enjoyable read.

This one was a slow burner for me to start with and I felt the graphic child abuse scenes distressing at times however it kept me gripped and I had to know the ending... and the ending was well worth the wait! Wow!

Overall enjoyed reading but had to have a few breaks in between chapters.

This was a very graphic book and made uncomfortable reading at times. I’m not sure if that’s what the author set out to achieve but it definitely set a haunting scene of ingrained abuse. The author writes very well and realistically.

** spoiler alert ** 4.25 stars

I really enjoy this type of book,and I'm not sure what that says about me.
Dark,intense,tension filled.
This one felt incredibly raw too... the character of Joy,so at pain in every stage of her life... growing up with her abusive father,and later coming back to look after him as he was dying.
I think it says a lot for the author that I felt sympathy for Gwen ,the mother too... caught up in a situation she didn't understand,and powerless to protect her children.
There was an actual moment I uttered a sad "oh" at one reveal,making it very clear how much I was invested in Joy's story.

Tugged at a lot of emotions.
Always a sign of an excellent book.

The Silent Listener was not only about a dysfunctional family, but a family where the husband and father brutalized, terrorized and traumatized the wife and children in the far reaches of the Outback in Australia.

Because there were so many 4 & 5* reviews, I kept reading, hoping for a shimmer of light. But by 25% could only see that the story was delving more and more into darkness and depravity. Consequently, I closed the book at that point.

I appreciate this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, Penguin Books, in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

In 1942 a young woman named Gwen meets George at a local dance. After a whirlwind romance, they marry. He takes her out to his home. It is a ramshackle place in a very isolated area of Australia. The problems start almost immediately, but Gwen refuses to see them for what they are. George is a tightwad with a ferocious temper.

Along come children: Mark is the eldest and Joy comes next. Then there is the most enigmatic Ruth.

Life on the farm is very hard. If it is not drowning in mud, it is hotter than heck and the land withers under the sun.

This book is primarily Joy's story. The reader learns about her daily life, trials and hardships. Her unique relationship with sister Ruth, her beloved brother Mark, her somewhat distant mother and of course, her devastating relationship with her father.

When she receives a phone call years after she has left the farm behind asking her to come back to take care of her dying father she agrees. Her mother died years earlier. She has lost track of Mark and she hasn't seen Ruth since she left home at age sixteen. Besides, Joy is determined to seek revenge on her father and this rules her life and the very decisions she makes. Perhaps now IS the time to return.

The chess game with Senior Constable Alex begins.

I loved the way that Joy learned the meaning of words and saw everything in pictures. I learn the same way and this is the first time I've ever seen it described in a novel. (Although the way I remember is not as ...colorful...as Joy's.) There are many surprises in this book. It is hard to read in places. George was such a monster.

The novel is beautifully written. Ms. Yeowart's choice of words is wonderful. The transitions are very smooth. I appreciate the way it switches back and forth in time. It gave me the feeling that I was witnessing the action all at the same time. I really enjoyed this book, and hoe to read more of Ms. Yeowart's novels soon.

I want to thank NetGalley and Joffe Books for forwarding to me a copy of this most wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

https://www.janeahobdenauthor.com/post/exceptional-one-of-my-favourite-books-over-the-past-5-years

For a debut novel, this is possibly one of the most artfully written books I’ve read in the past twelve months. The vocabulary, metaphors and symbolism used by the Author throughout is highly impressive to say the least. It draws you in and gets under your skin to the point where you literally cannot put it down, needing to find out how the story ends.

The novel moves between three time-periods – the 1940s where we meet George and Gwen Henderson beginning their marital journey setting up a dairy farm in Australia. Then we move to the 1960s and to their daughters, Joy and Ruth Henderson, where we find George, a pillar of the community and devout Christian who expects the same of his God-fearing children. However, Ruth is unable to leave the house as she was disfigured in a tragic accident that no one dares speak about. Then we move to the 1980s where Joy returns to her childhood home to care for their, now elderly, dying father. Having left home at the age of 16, she wants to return to demand some truths from her father and make him pay for her horrific upbringing.

The Author immediately creates an emotional connection with the reader and every era is intensely gripping as the Author describes how the girls, their mother and brother dealt with the terror they suffered at the hands of their father. It is written with such awe-inspiring flair especially from the perspective of Joy and her fears which is so powerful adding layer upon layer of emotion.

The twists and turns come thick and fast and at times I was stunned about every revelation. Some of the most touching chapters involve Joy going round to her friend Felicity’s house where she observes the love of a ‘normal’ family.

Despite Joy, Mark and Ruth’s abusive childhood, the story moves along in a light and shade manner, and one of the highlights is Joy’s description of the eels in her stomach which is perfect metaphorically for how she feels under the surface and is depicted so beautifully.

This is a heart-warming story of love, friendship, loyalty, family, trust and ultimate heartache wrapped up in an exceptional psychological thriller.

This has got to be one of my top 5 books over the last five years and I would highly recommend it. I look forward to more wonderful things from this talented Author.

It's somewhat ironic the protagonist is named Joy when there's so little of it in this book.
This one was a difficult one to rate as I want to give it both 5 stars for being an incredibly moving, intense and dark read - but I found it very difficult to read. I wouldn't want to mark it down for a difficult subject matter but I can't say I would rush to recommend it to my friends and family as it makes for uncomfortable reading in its detailed descriptions of abuse. It's so well written though that I found myself incredibly sad for them and angry at their Father on their behalf. I do think this book will stay with me for a long time to come but I haven't yet worked out if it's for the right reasons. A very thought provoking read all the same!

Thank you Netgalley and Joffe Books for the eARC.
Wow, this is quite the book! Different to my expectations, I couldn't put it down, even though, overall, it's a sad story.
It's veers from the 1940's to the 60's and 80's. The main protagonist, Joy Henderson, has come home after 17 years to help look after her father as he's dying. A broken being after years of her father's brutal treatment she's after revenge, bent on making her father pay for his reign of terror over her and her family. When he is finally dead, the local sheriff believes Joy killed him. Joy, in the meantime, is convinced her father killed a young friend of hers in the 60's and tried to get her father to confess to the murder before he died, looking for evidence at the same time.
The descriptions of the father's beatings and treatment of his family are horrendous; evidence, to me, that he was a psychopath.
My heart broke for Joy and the author did a wonderful job describing her inner life and the extreme fear she's lived with all her life, leaving her a psychological mess.
The ending was unbelievable! Highly recommended.

The word that comes to mind for this book is relentless.

It is absolutely relentless in keeping your attention, relentless in its descriptions and characters, and relentless in tearing your heart apart from beginning to end.

The story follows a few different POVs but the primary is Joy as she navigates her father’s terrorizing as a child to trying to solve a decades only missing child case. The layers and depth the author has given this character and the setting is impressive. There were times I was gasping for breath because I felt myself trapped in the same agony as Joy because of the vivid descriptions.

This is a dark and intense book and it was difficult to read at times but I am glad I finished it. It is certainly not a story I am likely to forget anytime soon.

1 star
I tried. I really did but I am just incapable of reading a book with this level of abuse against children!

“We’re all liars… It’s not a question of whether we lie or not, it’s a question of what lies we choose to tell. And to whom.”

The Silent Listener is the first novel by Australian editor and author, Lyn Yeowart. George Henderson, a respected member of the Blackhunt community, is dead. His daughter, Joy, called back after a seventeen-year absence to care for her dying father, might be expected to grieve, but does not. Senior Constable Alex Shepherd, summoned to the scene by George’s doctor, is suspicious: did Joy murder her father? If so, why?

In 1942, after a very short courtship, Gwen marries George Henderson and is brought to his newly-purchased dairy farm at Blackhunt in rural Victoria. From his detailed instructions, his rigid rules, his tight control of every aspect of her life, and his physical abuse, Gwen understands that this marriage will never be what she had expected.

Having no alternative, Gwen works hard to keep George happy and seeks refuge in her chooks and her flowers and the tiny room where she makes bouquets and wreaths to earn a few pounds. Within a decade, Gwen has given birth to a son, Mark, and two daughters, Ruth and Joy. She tries to protect them, but without a clear example of mothering in her own life, is less than successful.

Her children grow up learning to fear their father’s mercurial moods, which might deteriorate from the amount of rain that falls or the size of the butter factory cheque or the vet’s bill, or the perceived breaking of one of his countless arbitrary rules; they live in constant fear of the corporal punishment he seems to relish in dishing out to his “dirty, filthy sinners who are going to rot in Hell”.

George is a pillar of the community: an Elder of the Church, active in Rotary, a member of the High School PTA, the Fire Brigade, and the Shire Council committee, always helpful to neighbours, loved and lauded by all. When nine-year-old Wendy Boscombe goes missing two days after Christmas in 1960, no one in the town of Blackhunt could imagine he would have anything to do with it. But Wendy is never found, and Alex Shepherd is plagued by his failure to find her.

The story plays out over three time periods and is told from three perspectives. Readers are likely to wonder from the start about reliability of Joy’s narrative, and will feel vindicated about certain aspects as the facts are revealed, but there are still plenty of red herrings, distractions and twists to keep the pages turning.

The building tension in the story is sometimes relieved by neighbour Robert Larsen’s amusing word confusions (fire distinguisher, a quick trump call, obliviously, a fine lemming meringue pie), Joy’s insidious little acts of revenge, her musings about God, and the images and feelings that certain words convey to her. The easy acceptance of Gwen’s search of the Death Notices for “good ones” highlights the distortion of normality in this family.

Yeowart’s portrayal of setting and era are faultless, and the mindset of this small Australian rural community in each of the time periods is likely to strike a chord with many. Her character development is particularly skilful, and her depiction of coercive control is chilling. Her cop, if tenacious, is not terribly clever, but he does (sort of) get there in the end. This is a slow burn thriller that richly rewards the reader’s patience. More from Lyn Yeowart will be eagerly anticipated.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Joffe books