Given everything going on with Twitter at the moment, this was a fascinating premise. What would happen if everyone stopped trying to shout the loudest? A gripping narrative from the start, I loved almost every moment of the read. The only annoyance was the cross-referencing - I can see what Hailey was trying to do but it just made the reading disjointed as a reader is only ever going to skip them knowing it is a fiction..

Emilia is breaking the silence.

She's begun writing her memoirs with the help of the notebooks her Mother left behind after she quietly burned herself to death along with thousands of her followers. The Silence Project is going to tell the real story for the first time.

She hadn't heard her Mother speak since she was thirteen, not even in those final painful moments, but she's determined to finally find her own voice and speak about just how twisted The Community her Mother created has become in the years since her death.

The Community exalted Rachel as their saviour, their leader, their guiding light into a new age, the outside world condemned her as a terrorist and murderer. But to Emilia, she was her Mother. And all she can do is hope to speak loud enough to be heard before she's silenced again.

"Rachel was none of these. She was neither saint nor demon. No matter what she did, she was very human. She was deeply flawed and deeply courageous. She was a bad person and a good one. She was also my Mother."

What would you hear if you truly listened? If you got sick of your voice being unheard and let your silence speak louder? If you rose above the noise and allowed yourself to hear instead of respond? The Silence Project has countless questions to make you truly wonder about not only yourself but the world around you.

From the very start, it was a compulsive read with the kind of quiet terror that blends and blurs fiction with the real world. The kind where what isn't being said is more frightening than any words on the page. It lives firmly in the grey - forcing you to confront the delicate complexity of human nature, and the lines between right and wrong, anarchist and troublemaker, martyr and murderer.

A searing and timely statement abut cult mentality and its prevalence even today, this story is a twisted parallel of modern life in a deeply disturbing way. We explore how it easy it is to commit violence and hatred when you're just a voice in a crowd, and how out of control things can spiral with just one misplaced command or sentence. The reflection of the current political climate is unsettling. The Community started as a small movement, before launching into a worldwide platform, advocating for their ideas and infiltrating every aspect of society.

Th characters were multi-faceted, complicated people that were undeniably intoxicating. Rachel was a Mother, a Martyr, a Murderer - she was all these things and none of them. Everything single person you'd ask would have a different opinion about who she is and if she deserves to be revered or reviled. As for Emilia, our guide through this tale, she becomes immediately personable and relatable as she bares her soul to show us the simmering, seething emotions that have been brewing since her childhood and how they have shaped her. She is cold and concise but not uncaring - and as she goes through life she tries to balance being the daughter of an iconoclast or icon with simply being her.

Emilia talks directly to us, interspersing her story with letters, emails, news reports and other sources to create a truly engrossing experience - and while it was very dense and word-heavy in places, it never lost focus and evoked a desire to carry on the journey.

The Silence Project is a strange, alienating tale that painfully mirrors the darker and confusing parts of life. It doesn't have a clean satisfying end, nothing wrapped in a neat tidy bow and all packed away, but instead offers the reader a chance to reflect and a lingering sense of a dread that lasts long after the last page.

"Silence threatens people because it's only when you're silent that you can hear the truth behind their words."

An interesting and thought-provoking story set in a dystopian version of today. The narrative follows the story of the legendary Rachel of Chalkham, written from the perspective of her daughter, Emilia. It is purposely written as a “putting the record straight” memoir about the woman seen by some as a trail-blazing feminist martyr and founder of a philanthropic Community, and by others as a narcissistic cult leader responsible for the suicide of thousands of her followers. Written by the only person able to view her from the perspective of a daughter, it leaves the reader undecided, making it a great topic for an ethics class or a book club.

With thanks to the publisher, author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

Exposé of a world-changing regime in a daughter's iconoclastic account of her celebrated mother.

An unusual format, with Emilia, now an adult, writing a book about her sainted mother, Rachel of Chalkham, and the occurrences leading up to and after The Event that left 21,000 women around the world simultaneously dead by their own hands.

Emilia is celebrating her 13th birthday at her dad’s pub when she hears her mother’s voice for the last time. After that day, her mother moves to the land outside, stops speaking, and communicates by notes. The world needs to listen more than to speak. Over time, other women join her, a community builds, political acts are staged. Emilia writes about these times and how they built to the act that was felt the world over, The Event, and what has led to her writing this memoir/exposé/personal revelation a decade later.

The book assumes the reader knows all about Rachel, it builds Emelia’s world around her references to ‘famous’ speeches, Community individuals, books written about them, their symbols (shh!) and policies, cementing Rachel and her following in a popular culture we don’t recognise but easily can. The rise of celebrities, of causes, of swift proliferation through social media and clever PR.

It could easily happen. I particularly liked that The Event is only the midday point of Emilia’s account. I wasn’t sure what could follow her description of this, but her own story and life post-Event is just as important in the telling, as it shows how Rachel’s Community grew and changed following this, and was both scary and fascinating to read about. It could all so easily happen.

This has a lot to say about intention, about mothers and daughters, cults (or personality) and control. I can see that it’s advertised as likely to appeal to readers of Vox, The Power, The End of Men – all books I’ve loved myself actually – and it will do, though as ever, I don’t think this is a book just for women, it makes points similar to 1984 at times about society and where we are or could be taking ourselves. It’s for anyone interested in dystopic fiction and about what happens when humans don't look outside their own spheres as to how to act. As the author explains in a note at the close: "this novel is a deliberate blending of fact and fiction, reality and unreality..." and you feel that throughout, real events you know about and fictionalised ones you just hope stay that way.

There are key scenes and reports of outright horror that bring this a feel of historical accuracy and immediacy, Emilia bringing together real-world events (from her version of our world) with her personal views and history. This isn’t a book for women, it just happens to be about some of them.

Read it. And listen.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

One day Rachel Morris decamps to the bottom of the beer garden of the pub where the family live and work and never speaks another word, leaving a family to navigate the most extraordinary turn of events. When Emilia discovers her deceased mothers notebooks she embarks on writing this memoir, attempting to unpick and unravel her own life and her mothers intentions when she set up what would become the Community. .It's so clever you often wonder what's real and what's not, Real events and fictional reference footnotes are interspersed into the narrative immersing you into a world that make you question what's actually fiction or fact. And once you sort of think you get it and wonder much further the story can go, you're taken to whole new environment as Emilia goes to the Congo to work for the Community where she tries to figure out her place in the world and what it was her mother had actually hoped to achieve as the Community becomes a global force. It's hard to explain without giving away spoilers. Suffice to say this brilliantly clever dystopian novel is gripping and beautifully written and gives you so much to think about. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend.

I was excited to start The Silence Project as dystopian thrillers are some of my favourite genres of books. The plot follows the story of Emilia Morris: whose mother started a community of silence at the bottom of her garden when she was 13. When her mother and her followers burn themselves to death to try and inspire the world to listen, a worldwide phenomenon was born. But is this organisation following in the footsteps her mother created or is there a darker force at play?

Disappointingly I found The Silence Project to be quite hard to get into and I struggled to stay engaged. Part of this is down to the writing style - the book deals in alternative history and it is written in the style of part memoir, part academic document. This means there are footnotes and references peppering the book which just amount to lists of books that aren’t real and websites that don’t exist. When I first saw one of the websites, I excitedly typed in the url to my phone to see if they had perhaps created an online Easter egg and was a little disappointed that it led nowhere. Later in the book I saw some addresses were from sites such as BBC News in an attempt to make it all seem real, but this just had the opposite effect on me and broke up the story too much with no payoff.

The story is split into two halves, with the first half of the book dealing with Emilia’s childhood and the beginnings of the Community. The problem is we never really get into Rachel Morris’ head - we never properly understand why she decided to stop talking and what she was trying to achieve. This ambiguity helps in the later section when the aims of the Community have grown and shifted but it made it hard to empathise with the characters. Rachel’s character comes across as harsh and selfish – not wanting to help her family provide an income or be there for her daughter on important milestones. However, because of this confusion of what Rachel was doing, Emilia also comes across as a bit of a spoiled brat and I didn’t really empathise with her. I felt this section, although providing important backstory dragged a little and we got a lot of superfluous detail that we didn’t really need.

The second half was where I started to pay more attention as the sinister aims of The Community started after Rachel’s death. I never understood why Emilia said she hated The Community and yet decided to join it, even moving to the Democratic Republic of Congo to work for them. Even when a lot of the information is revealed and the darker side is made very clear, she still stays for so many years without any realistic motivation. Her story in the DRC is interesting, but it’s only really interesting if it were a real story, whereas as it is a fantasy there was a lot of information that could have been edited out.

Overall, The Silence Project is an interesting concept but it wasn’t fleshed out in the right places for me and I found it hard to engage with the writing style and the characters. Thank you to NetGalley & Atlantic Books – Corvus for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A quite remarkable and unique book, difficult to describe. It is written in the form of a book to be published with footnotes and annotations throughout which made the story more believable (although some of the references relate to actual events). On Emelia's thirteenth birthday, her mother Rachel moved to a tent at the bottom of the garden never to utter another word. This started a whole new community (or cult) based on passive protests with everyone listening. After her death this community is taken over by members who appear to value money and power, rather than listening, as the best way to solve the world's problems. This is Emelia's story.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for the advance copy of this book.

Emilia’s mother, Rachel, leaves the family home on her thirteenth birthday to live in a tent at the bottom of the garden. From that point she takes a vow of silence. She is joined by other women to become The Community whose philosophy is to really listen to what people are saying I order to make the world a better place. Eight years later Rachel and thousands of women burn themselves to death as part of The Event.

Emilia sets out to write about her mother and the development of her ideas prior to The Event from notebooks left by her. She also writes about her involvement with the Community and her gradual disillusionment with its ideas. She learns to value her own opinions and stand up to the warped vision of the Community.

Hard to read at times but very thought provoking.

One to be recommended and discussed at book groups!

Thank you for an advance copy on rxchanfe for an honest review.

This was such a compelling read! Carole Hailey does such a good job of blending real life events and fiction to create a fictional book that reads like a real life memoir. The book is written as a memoir by Emilia Morris who is the daughter of infamous Rachel of Chalkham, a woman who took a vow of silence which led to a cult like community forming around her idea and expanding beyond imagination. The events in this book are fictional but are cleverly written and thought out. This book really does make you stop and think because even though the ideas and events are extreme and sound unbelievable it is easy and scary to see how this kind of thing could become reality under the right circumstances.
This is definitely an intriguing and thought provoking book. It is very much like Emilia describes her world at one point like the prequel to a dystopian novel.

It’s been a while since I’ve been so torn on how to rate a book. THE SILENCE PROJECT is a brilliant, page-turning concept that thoroughly delivers on a terrifying dystopia that isn’t too far from our reach. For that reason, I’d recommend.

My problem is that around the 50% mark - immediately after a major event in the book that I was desperate to learn more about - it really loses it’s way. The book drifts tonally and it really affects the pacing of what is mostly a tightly written page-turner. I found myself exasperated and skimming to get to the point, it seems in the aftermath of the big event the author loses her way.

I’m glad I persevered as the ending is fantastic, but it really feels like the book was let down by a failure to edit. 3.5 stars all up, so easily could have been 5!

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and had been looking forward to reading it for a while. I wasn't disappointed. It's a cleverly imagined – and unnervingly believable - story about a woman who decides one day to stop speaking, as an act of protest. Word spreads (although not through her, obviously!) and soon Rachel of Chalkham has a dedicated band of followers who call themselves the Community, practising silence and listening and taking increasingly drastic steps to draw attention to their cause, culminating in The Event.

The story is narrated by Rachel's daughter, which was an ingenious touch, as it explores the disconnect between the public figure and the maternal one. There are some really knotty and interesting moral and ethical issues explored, and I was so impressed by the level of world-building that had gone into it. I think this one is going to really capture people's imaginations.

I totally admit the first thing that drew my attention to this book was the powerful cover. The grey background with the flames surrounding the female with the tape over her mouth. To me the grey featuring of the cover and then the female being grey too, represents the plain notebooks that Emilia’s mother kept and the “ordinary” that she felt herself to be. Emilia’s mother ended up represented the many but to begin with she was a remarkably “ordinary” “normal” young woman.

The main characters are two equally strong women, Rachel and her daughter Emilia. Rachel who was a bit of a hippy, wanderer who ended up pregnant and needing some stability for her baby and herself. It is her correspondence with Nick’s mother and Nick’s mothers matchmaking that see’s Rachel turn up at his pub with baby Emilia needing somewhere to stay. Nick always harboured feelings for Rachel so they soon become a small happy enough family. Nick is the only father Emilia knows and treats her as his own. Rachel had always been her “own person” perhaps some would say a little “odd” even so people, including Nick, his mother and Emilia don’t bat much of an eyelid when she sets up a tent at the bottom of their garden and literally stops speaking, though her timing is poor to say the least as she does this on her daughter’s 13th birthday. It soon becomes apparent that this isn’t a passing fad for Rachel and whilst she lives in her own little silent world. It is Nick mother that steps up into the day-to-day motherly duties for Emilia. Nick continues to run the family pub as best he can. Rachel’s antics soon draw attention from others and so begins what turns out to be quite a cult-like movement. The self- enforced silence of herself and her followers is only the beginning, soon there are protests and then eventually the “event” where Rachel and some of her most dedicated followers set themselves alight!

The whole story is told in a diary like format and in the voice and from the point of view of Emilia Morris. It goes into how she felt and was affected by her Rachel’s actions. The harassment, and abuse Emilia and Nick endured before and after the “event.” As well as how “friends” reacted to what was happening around Emilia. The book is covers the equally fascinating and horrific act committed by Rachel and some of her most zealot followers. The book also covers the time frame after the “event” and during the “writing of the book” where Emilia is trying to make a life for herself from within her mothers shadow, whilst at the same time trying to make sense of why her mother chose to live and die the way she did. Emilia is trying to understand why her mothers final act was so desperate and destructive. Whilst trying to understand her own mother, Emilia actually continues working for the movement her mother began. Though I think perhaps the movement Rachel originally had in mind, if there was any planning behind her actions other than her being guided by her instincts does veer away from the direction Rachel intended.
Emilia calls her book about her mother “The Silence Project” and really does face a lot of harsh backlash and even death threats for daring to write about the great Rachel of Chalkham. Everyone seems to have their own theories of why Rachel “created” the group of like-minded people as well as why she set herself alight. The zealots and followers don’t like the fact Emilia is using Rachels own diaries and words for her book. Nick openly admits to his beloved step daughter that he wishes she wasn’t writing it, that he worries for her safety and sanity. Emilia’s replies to people are that many books have been written about “Rachel of Chalkham” so why shouldn’t Rachels own daughter release one, and she points out that her book is not just about Rachel, it is about her own life with and around Rachel.

On the whole I really enjoyed reading this book and Emilia writing her book about her mother Rachel. As a former employee of WHSmiths I loved the reference to the WHS notebook standing the test of time well, complete with grass stain on back, mug stains on front , only detached from 4 of its wire rings! I thoroughly enjoyed the other current/recently pop culture references. The book is quite 'on the ball' with current politics too. A Prime Minister not voted for by the people, and the reference to Politicians 'so in love with their own voices, they can no longer hear ours'
I adored and laughed out loud at the 'Life lessons list' including but not limited to the list entries of, Always wear pants with a cotton gusset. Lifes too short for dry clean blouses. Keep your body fit and your mind will follow. I was also pleasantly surprised by the mention of Pontefract in the book which is just a couple of miles from where I currently live!

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were “What an unusual, unique and compulsive read.” Though I must admit there were occasions during reading the book that I became impatient for the book to move on a little faster than it was doing.

Summing up, I found the book really interesting, with its unique plot that certainly draws you in and holds on to you making you want to make some sort of sense of why main character Rachel did what she did! I did find it difficult to rate this book out of 5, as I dearly wanted to give it 5/5 but there were the odd occasions, I became a little impatient/exasperated at parts of it so ended up going with a 4/5. Having said that do not let my 4/5 rating put you off reading the book just let it prepare you, encourage you to stick with reading the book if you are finding it slower than your favoured pace. I will be looking out for other books by this author in the future too!

Cult and motherhood, two very different issues but when connected they become intrinsically intertwined. A slow but interesting read about finding your own identity when the world has already decided you are the daughter of your famous mother.

Wow what a book. This is such a scary read about how what seems a simple concept can have far reaching consequences that no one can understand and how one woman’s quest to be silent and start properly listening destroyed the lives of all around her in ways no one could ever expect. It’s fascinating because her thought and ideas make perfect sense in this world but it was scary to read how a simple and honest idea can turn into something so painful and destructive and I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t a true story as it felt so real. A great read.

The silence project - Carole Hailey

Well what an interesting read! The worrying thing about this book is that you could 100% see this happening in real life, most of the time I had to keep reminding myself that this book was fiction. The author had me feeling so many different emotions, and I must have changed my opinion on characters numerous times throughout the book. I could really see this being adapted into a film or series. Overall I found the book fascinating but a little slow in pace at times, but this does not take away the thought provoking read that it is, I would totally recommend this book especially to fans of Christina Dalcher books. Thank you very much Netgalley and Atlantic Books for the e-arc in return for my honest opinions.

Wife and mother to thirteen year old Emilia, Rachel Morris decides to move to the bottom of the garden and erects a tent from where she never speaks a single word ever again.

Though she never speaks, Rachel’s silence is ‘heard’ by likeminded women around the world, some of whom decide to join her, and from a single tent, arises a community who worship Rachel and what she stands for.

The community however attracts global attention and some eight years later, Rachel and thousands of her followers burn themselves to death in a final act of wanting to be ‘heard’!

Many years later Emilia begins to write an account of her mother’s life, but she has no idea the animosity that this will stir up. However, she’s determined to carry on, if only to bring closure for herself.

About a third of the way through, I found that the storyline dragged, and of course I lost interest, so from then on it took me a while to get back into it. I have to say though that this is quite a unique storyline with some interesting characters, and other readers have given it a five star rating, but sadly it’s a three star from me.

Dystopian fiction, a cult, the cult founder's daughter. Well written and crafted, disturbing as in I had trouble remembering it is in fact fiction. Well done!

The Silence Project by Carole Hailey completely captured my attention from the first page with how realistic the story feels.

The book focuses on an almost cult-like group, the Silence Community, launched by the narrator’s mother, Rachel Morris, and their subsequent political ambitions.

Immersed in an alternative version of the past with newspaper snippets and emails to support the narrative, I often found myself googling events and people to see if they were real. The author so seamlessly combines true events and individuals with her own unique universe of characters.

The narrator, Emilia, is such a relatable character and the conversational tone of the writing makes you feel like you’re truly getting to know her and her side of the story.

I just can’t rave enough about how Carole writes – it’s so engaging and makes you wish the story continued on endlessly so you can learn more about what happens next and the various character motivations.

Trigger warnings: the story does cover some dark themes – suicide, etc – so may not be for everyone.

"The Silence Project" by Carole Hailey is such a well-developed book. I'm not sure if it can be considered dystopian but it definitely does show another world where the Community becomes a dominant force in society after Rachel of Chalkham gives up talking and begins listening. It's the kind of book that you need to read and digest the narrative, topics and themes. Just so clever.

An interesting book where fact meets fiction with some pretty hard to read passages. I've only given it 3 stars and probably verging on 3.5, as I feel it's not a read for everyone. being objective rather than subjective. It is difficult to say it was enjoyable but certainly thought provoking, relaxing it is not. I think I preferred the beginning more, finding some of the later chapters a little slow. Interesting overall.