3.5 stars
I enjoyed this unique historical fiction story. I knew about silk worms but didn’t know about silk spiders! I found the topic very interesting. That said, I didn’t always like the back and forth POVs. The silk tied the stories but it took a while for everything to come together for me.

I fancied this book as a good prospect, seeing as I have hyperaccusis and empathised with Henry.
But, as I delved deeper into the book I found the compulsion Henry had toward Sir Edward interfered with how the book held my attention. So although the book had a reasonable storyline, albeit not a brilliant ending, it was not for me.
Therefore I would give this book 2 stars.

Sadly, although the premise was interesting, I just couldn't connect with the book due to, imo, weak characterisations....especially Henry, who couldn't have been more naive and blind! It just didn't ring true.

enjoyed this book in parts but felt it was missing a little something overall as you entered a different world and the plot had the potential to be to be good.

I admit that I expected something more from this title.

I love books with gothic, dark atmospheres and on this point I was absolutely not disappointed. Indeed, the setting and atmosphere captured me but unfortunately I didn't feel involved in the story and especially the characters.

Thanks again to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-ARC

The plot of this book is a captivating blend of fun and fantastical elements that could easily have veered into fantasy or science fiction. Instead, the author skillfully incorporates aspects of various genres while maintaining the integrity of the core genre, ensuring a seamless and engaging read.

The narrative is rich with nuance, addressing themes such as grief, LGBTQ+ relationships, colonization, and social class commentary. These elements are woven into the story with a deft touch, avoiding preachiness and instead presenting them in a genuine and beautiful manner. This thoughtful approach adds depth to the book, making it a compelling and immersive experience that I found utterly absorbing.

4.5/5.

The Silence Factory is an imaginative, immersive and spellbinding story. I was thoroughly captivated by it from start to finish!

The narrative follows two time lines. First, we have a woman travelling to a remote Greek island in the early 19th century with her husband, Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy, who is seeking some remarkable find he has heard about. The scientist he hopes to meet is dead when they arrive, and they settle in as her husband continues his search. It's a strained marriage and Sophia is unhappy as tempers fray...

Some years later, Henry Latimer is working in his father-in-law's shop, as an audiologist, selling ear trumpets, when Sir Edward comes into the shop on behalf of his deaf daughter. He leaves Henry a small piece of cloth that Henry soon realises has remarkable properties. Shortly afterwards, Henry leaves London to stay with Sir Edward and his daughter. Sir Edward invites Henry to work for him to promote the cloth being made at his factory.

While the subject of the novel is a 'magical' cloth, the story is vivid and realistic and the suspension of disbelief is total. I viscerally felt the shiver of the menacing, Gothic atmosphere in the factory town, the deafening noise of the factory, the sticky cling of cobwebs, the deadly suck of rushing floodwater. And the seductive, calming quiet of the cloth.

It's a splendid novel and a really great read. Highly recommended. The only aspect that pulls it down from a 5* to a 4* rating is the Greek-island sections, which I felt could have been shortened. The thread of the relationship between Sophia and Hira, for example, felt a bit tangential and slow. I was impatient to return to the primary narrative.

Thank you to @NetGalley_UK, @HarperFiction and @Br1dgetCollins for the ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Bridget Collins is a master of gothic suspence fiction, and this book is no different. I liked the two different strands to the story, though I would have liked a bit more connection between them at times. There are interesting strands of colonialism, misogyny and class privilege throughout, and I did appreciate the blinkered vision of Henry until things were so obvious he couldn't ignore them - it felt very realistic.

This was thoroughly enjoyable that kept me reading into the small hours. It was full of mystery and intrigue and the story just pulls you in, This is not normally my genre but I thought I would take a chance and I am so glad I did. I will certainly be looking to read more by this wonder author

Spiders.
I have enjoyed Bridget 's other works, but this on stretched my imagination too far.
The story of an unhappy woman Sophia taken to the island of Kratos in the 1890's he hunts for spiders while she befriends an English speaking woman Hira. When Sophia finds the spider that James is hunting for he is initially pleased but gets more obsessed with it, bringing out a side of his character that Sophia did not know.
In London years later Henry works for his father in law, making hearing aids and conducting examinations. James visit a the shop seeking help for his deaf daughter, Henry is sent to meet her, he finds James runs a large silk factory, the product cuts out noise and has made some of the workers deaf.
I did find this book quite long for the content, although the Victorian factory model was interesting, the characters were sometimes hard to believe.
Thank you Bridget, NetGalley and Harper Collins for this ARC

The Silence Factory is a troubling read, slowly drawing us in. There’s a lyrical quality to the writing which made reading feel a little slow on occasion, but as the story progresses it becomes quite mesmerising.
The main part of the story focuses on audiologist Henry Latimer who is tasked with visiting the home of Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy in order to try and help his daughter to hear. Sir Edward is heir to a fortune, but his business is focused very much on his family history.
Alongside Henry’s increasingly disturbed experience in Telverton we also, through a diary found in the property, learn more about how the Ashmore-Percy fortune was made. We see the obsessive hunt for this fabled spider, whose silk has properties that are much in demand (though it comes with great risk).
The story behind the silk was intriguing, but I also found myself caught up in the intricacies of the story in the present. The silk factory, with its rather grotesque experiments, owed much to the Gothic genre and it was fascinating to see how the focus on madness linked to notions of submissiveness. None of the characters were particularly likeable, but it was hard not to feel sympathy for those caught in the spell of the very thing they were trying to control.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this in advance of publication.

This was my first book by Bridget Collins, and the idea was very original and well-told. The issues faced by both disabled folk and women were engaging (if a little hard to read at times), and the writing atmospheric.

Unfortunately though, it's a DNF for me due to sadly discovering the author's unpleasant activity on social media. Really sorry to see this, but I can't in good conscience continue. Apologies.

The Silence Factory was brilliantly written, haunting and definitely not for arachnophobes! I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Wonderfully captivating and beautifully creative!

This story is set over two timelines which transitioned seamlessly. I’m always wary of huge time hops but this was exceptionally well written.

I thoroughly enjoyed the vivid descriptions and the use of languages to create interesting and unique images in one’s mind.

With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

Bridget Collins does have a knack for coming up with truly original plot lines by reversing an accepted way of the world. In The Binding, the idea of memory being desirable was turned on its head. In The Silence Factory, it is the turn of the noise and bustle of the world. Where most people would consider that their environment is what grounds them and connects them to other people and their surroundings, the premise of this novel is that it can be unbearable to be rooted in the physical world, and anything that can shut it out is welcome.
Henry works in his father in law's business making and selling hearing aids for the hard-of-hearing or deaf, in late Victorian London. He has just lost his beloved young wife in childbirth, and would give anything to be able to forget the sounds and sights of that horror and to shut out the noise of an indifferent world going about its business. When a wealthy client approaches them to assess his deaf daughter, Henry is intrigued by the man's business proposition - a special silk made from spiders' webs, that can shut out sound but which also offers intriguing hints of the voices of the dead, and has a calming influence. He jumps at the chance to travel to Sir Edward's estate to assess the man's daughter, and whilst there he accepts an offer of a job helping to market the new, and very expensive, silk which Sir Edward has set up a factory to produce.

Henry's tale is juxtaposed with the story of the discovery of the silk, nearly a century earlier - a tale of exploitation, oppression and betrayal that bodes no good for the seemingly miraculous technology in the story's present. And the full cost of the silk's production is indeed a tale of evil and greed, culminating in a natural disaster of near-Biblical proportions.

The layers of both strands are skilfully managed, tantalisingly revealing snippets of detail that build up to a finale of gothic horror. There are parallels to be drawn with every historic story of exploitation, from slavery to colonialism, but this works as a story in its own right, which is always the most important thing. It could perhaps have been a bit more tightly edited, a smidge more concise, but Bridget Collins has a startlingly original imagination. Her writing style still feels a bit like the young adult author she started out as, but she is always worth reading. Recommended.

A unique and intriguing storyline....spiders that create webs that block out noise but also create madness. I really enjoyed this one, much less slow burn than The Binding, i think the dual timelines help keep the pace moving and keep it interesting. A story of betrayal and greed.

This story combines elements of mythology and gothic mystery but doesn’t fully engage the reader. The idea of a spider silk with the power to muffle and amplify sound and control emotions is intriguing but the storytelling is let down by an uninspiring plot and characters with ambiguous motivations.

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

I’m an arachnophobe. I run from rooms when there’s a particularly large spider around - and I still loved this book. I have to admit, I did have to visualise them as chunkier and furrier with fewer legs. Web-weaving Jack Russells, if you will 🤦🏼‍♀️ But that’s the joy of reading!

A factory in Telverton seems to have acquired a particular breed of spider whose web, when spun into a silken fabric, can bring silence to the person/ people sitting inside. However, if the fabric is the other way round, it produces sounds that can make people go mad (they don’t make too much of that fact). So, no the best factory to work in, then!

I enjoyed the two timelines: the discovery of the spiders in 1820, told through the journals of Sophia Ashmore-Percy; and the manufacture of the silk in a factory town decades later along with an audiologist who goes to work for Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy. He has the task of helping Sir Ashmore-Percy’s deaf daughter to hear.

I love how Bridget Collins mixes historical fiction and fantasy, and makes it all seem perfectly reasonable. There’s a lot to be said in this story about taking advantage of people for profit (in the factory in particular) and how nature can be used for man’s own ends, regardless of the consequences. Humans aren’t painted in the best of light, and I actually felt sorry for the spiders 🕷️🕷️🕷️

Still don’t like spiders though.

This novel didn’t grip me like the previous Collins novels and was more of a slow, sinister burn. Once again there’s a fantastical twist set in a kind of gothic historical world. In one timeline we follow Sophia, a woman whose husband is intent on discovering the truth behind the myth of miraculous spiders on a Greek Island. In a second time strand we follow Henry Latimer, a grieving widow enticed to visit a mysterious silk-making factory where spiders weave silence. Initially Henry is completely enamoured but as things take a turn he realises that he alone can abort a horrifying dystopian vision of obedience. I don’t think I truly enjoyed the world of this novel or the characters - I found the plot interesting but I never really felt in love with it.

My thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher, The Borough Press, for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book and was hooked from the first few chapters. I think the only thing I would have liked is a bit more connection between the two timelines.