Have you ever read a book where you are convinced, convinced, that you have it all sussed out? You smile somewhat smugly to yourself as the plot unfolds around you, nodding your head as events transpire in the way that you anticipated they would. Have you ever then had EVERYTHING that you believed turned on its head in a instant? The shock, the sheer disbelief hitting you in the stomach and causing your eyes to open wider than you thought possible in astonishment? The Silent Patient is THAT book, the one that will leave you thinking about it days, months, after you finished it and marvelling at its brilliance.

Meet Alicia Berenson who since shooting her husband has never spoken another word. Since this unfathomable and shocking event six years previously Theo Faber has made it his life goal to find out why, why a successful and renowned painter would suddenly and callously murder her own husband in cold blood?

Theo’s growing desperation to unpick Alicia results in a delicious sense of foreboding that crackles and hisses from the page. Alicia’s diary providing a fascinating insight into her life before and breathing life into the silent and haunted woman who sits mutely before us.

As the identities of Alicia and Theo blur we begin to fear exactly what is hidden behind that veil of silence and if the truth is actually so incendiary it should never ever be voiced aloud.

Destined to be the book everyone is talking about, The Silent Patient is set to reignite the thriller genre this year.

This was a teaser from the publishers via Netgalley .. completely hooked and extremely relieved to have been approved for the complete book.

Update - just finished the full book and LOVED IT will review on publication day but 4.5 big juicy stars from me

To start with I was pleasantly surprised as I received the full book rather than the expected sampler. This has me hooked from the beginning, I loved the concept. The two different perspectives are insightful and I loved the twist. However the ending left me a little frustrated.

OMG WHAT A BOOK!!!!!!
If I could I would award this book this book ten stars I would WOW.
A debut author and this is their first book. I am blown away. I was hooked, in the zone and nothing was going to disturb me while I was reading this book. I read this book in one sitting, hence I did not finish this book until 4am and boy it was worth it. This author gives you clues, red herrings and takes you one way when you really should have gone in a different direction. WOW WOW WOW the ending was explosive !!!!!! This book is a MUST READ. I loved it and I can't wait to read more from this amazing author. Highly highly recommended.

So, I was going to take notes. Maybe highlight a lot of interesting sentences or important paragraphs. Maybe even start to form the outline of a review.

Well I didn’t.

And I’m not sorry.

Not even a little bit.

I didn’t do any of that because all I did was read. I read the entire book in no time at all. Well, yes it did take me several days but in my busy world that really means I flew through it.

The slow burner of a story had me hooked within the first few pages and kept me hooked. It was good, and read like it was well researched.

It was very much a character driven story as we find out slowly why Alicia has been silent for years and learn more about her therapist Theo, and his impact on her life. I didn’t necessary like all of the characters in the book, but I did enjoy reading about them.

Now for the very important question of… did I guess the ending?

Well yes. I did.

I kind of had it figured out from about part 3 or the beginning of part 4… See I can’t remember because I didn’t take notes. And I didn’t take any notes because I was enjoying the book so much. So, despite having a good guess at the ending I still very much enjoyed the journey to get there.

Also…

Me – Living under a rock.

I have just recently returned to the fabulous world of book blogging and I requested The silent patient by Alex Michaelides to review without being aware of the hype and excitement surrounding it. Since then I have seen this book everywhere.

I’m sure I read somewhere that The silent patient was going to be made into a movie…? Well, I will be watching it. I can see how the plot would lend itself well to the big screen. And it is something else to look forward too. While reading it, I did at one-point wonder if the author had written it with a screenplay in mind or was also a screenwriter.

For me The silent patient by Alex Michaelides was a bit of a slow burner, with a big finale, and absolutely worth a read.

I will be reading anything else Alex Michaelides decides to write in the future. Consider me a fan.

The silent patient by Alex Michaelides is due to be published – 5th Feb 2019

I received a copy of The silent patient from the publisher via NetGalley, the review is my own honest opinion.

Thank you Orion for sharing a copy of this book with me - all opinions are my own.

I have to say that it is rare for a psychological thriller to truly shock and awe me with the twists they throw out, but The Silent Patient legitimately blew my socks off. This is one of those books that is a RIDE, so strap in.

The suspense in this book is sky high - you know right from the beginning what the crime committed was, but you have no idea why Alicia has been silent every minute of every day since. There is such an incredible amount of slow-burn character drama that just never feels like its dragging, as you are immersed in figuring out the mystery of Alicia's mind.

Alex did amazing work moving between present day and Alicia's diary entries leading up to the event, which peel back layer after layer of what went so wrong to land her in a psychiatric hospital, medicated to high heaven and refusing to make a sound. I so desperately wanted to figure out what happened that I ended up cancelling plans to stay in so I could finish the book.

I won't offer more, because this is a thriller that the reader needs to be able to devour fully oblivious to any hint of what is to come. All I will say is clear your schedule, because once you start its impossible to stop.

The perfect thriller to dive into to pass away the winter days!

This book ...oh. My. Gosh! The pacing was excellent, the characters well written, the plot was above par, and that ending! I will recommend this to anyone that loves a great thriller/who dunnit/why... it was amazing! Thank you Netgalley for my advanced copy!

Yes, a good sampler,I enjoyed what I read and I am looking forward to reading more. I was disappointed that this was just a sampler. Interesting

This fantastic debut novel really does live up to the hype. It is truly brilliant and easily the best book I’ve read this year.

Alicia Berenson has what seems to be the perfect life, she is an artist and her husband is a fashion photographer. One night Gabriel, Alicia’s husband returns home late and Alicia shoots him 5 times in the face. From that moment she doesn’t utter another word. Theo Faber a criminal psychologist goes to the secure facility where Alicia is kept and tries to work with her to get her to open up, to get to the truth behind what truly happened.

A truly spectacular, debut novel I could not put down.

I really enjoyed this. Pacey with unexpected twists, and a satisfying conclusion. At times it felt like it was being laid out too explicitly (in the diary entries, for example) but the final pay-off made this worthwhile.

I have somehow ended up with 2 copies of this book on my shelf. Below is the review I previously gave.


Wow. The twist at the end of this book is brilliant. This book had me pulled in from the first page. The characters are so interesting I wanted to know more and more about them. Everything is really well written. I read this in one sitting. I would definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

If you have read the synopsis I will be surprised if you're not already dying to get your hands on a copy. Even thought famous painter Alicia Berenson appears to have the perfect life with her loving husband, things are certainly not what they seem. When her husband returns home late from work one evening and Alicia shoots him in the face five times, then never speaks again, Alicia's life changes forever.

The book is set over the duration of 6 years whist Alicia is living in a mental care facility called The Grove. During which time criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber transfers over to The Grove after becoming obsessed with Alicia's case and the idea of solving the mystery.  During the book we get snippets from Alicia's diary, and even though Alicia is now pretty much mute, using these extracts and the POV of Theo, we slowly we begin to piece together what really happened that awful night.

The final diary entry is discovered towards the end of the book which is what finally slots the last piece of the puzzle into place. The pace of the book changes at this point and things (as well as my pulse) begin to speed up rapidly.

I loved digging deep into each and every character including Alicia herself (for someone that is silent she had an incredible amount to say), as well as getting to know Theo's background. I was surprised to find I didn't get bored like I sometimes do when character development is overdone a little too much in books.

Unwrapping each layer of the story bit by bit proved to uncover more significant detail which lead to more twists and an explosive ending. I didn't see the twist coming, and I couldn't have guessed how the book was going to end which overall meant my experience of reading The Silent Patient was fantastic.

What a teaser and what a book this promises to be !!
I devoured this sampler and was lucky enough have also received the full book also so its straight on to that as it totally compulsive reading just reading the first few chapters and I can't wait.

I enjoyed the originality of this title and it had some interesting information included within the text regarding psychological therapy. Although some of it was fictionalised it added a good depth to the easy-to-read mystery surrounding what happened to the narrators husband and why. There were a few twists that caught me off-guard, and an explanatory chapter towards the end used to further explain what happened when and why, and who was culpable. If you can suspend your belief you will enjoy this well-told story of a female psychiatric patient who chooses to remain silent until her shocking conclusive reveal.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. As this is a sample, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this!

Wow, the sampler of The Silent Patient is a great teaser and I can't wait to keep reading! The opening few chapters included in this sample are such a great set up. We get to meet Alicia and understand that she is the silent patient ever since killing her husband. We also get to meet Theo who has had his own issues in the past but is now a trained psychotherapist and is desperate to be able to work with Alicia. He seems sure that he will succeed in helping her where others have failed. I love the way this novel is written, it draws you in so quickly and makes you want to know more. I can't wait to see where this novel is going to go!

Great storyline, I loved the characters and they really drew me into their lives. I was enjoying the flow and speed of this story, then all of a sudden the twist hit me, I thought to myself..really, did I just read that, why didn't I see this coming? Great twist leading to another twists, brilliant ending.

A book I really enjoyed and loved more as it progressed.

I have already written my feedback lat week, so not sure why this is still waiting for it.
I found this book very good indeed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I thought this was a thoroughly good read, but has a shockingly good ending. You wonder why Theo is so spellbound by the silent patient, but assume (or are led) to believe it is due to the circumstances of her committal. Wow.

I couldn't bring myself to read this sampler until I had a proof copy of the whole book. So now I've read the whole thing, and all I can say is that the hype is entirely justified. This is a near-perfect thriller; it reads like a classic. Despite knowing there was a big twist, I didn't come close to guessing what it was. And when I got to it, I had that wonderful feeling of everything slotting into place, and the desire to go back to the start and read it again, armed with my new knowledge. This book is a triumph and I can't wait to see where the author goes next.