Set in 1967 and 1997, Susan Allott’s ‘The Silence’ is a memorable portrayal of a society that condoned the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their homes into institutions. However, readers who expect a close look at the anguish suffered by these children and their grieving parents may be surprised to see that Allott focuses for the most part on the white families who let this happen. ‘The Silence’ of the title reminds us that, for decades, no one spoke up for the indigenous people. Indeed, it was not until 1980 that the homes were closed.
Isla is a little girl in 1967. As soon as she is able, she moves to London, keen to escape her unhappy family – a mother who is quick to anger, an alcoholic father, a closed off brother. When called back to Sydney in 1997 to support her father against rumours of the murder of Mandy, a vivacious former neighbour, she agrees to return knowing that no one else is likely to defend him.
Over the course of the narrative, we learn a great deal about Mandy and her husband, Steve, a policeman whose job it was to take Aboriginal children from their families. We sympathise with him as he grows more and more appalled by what he is doing, not least because he longs for a child of his own. Parents and children is a central theme in this novel. What makes a ‘good’ parent? Is it unnatural not to want children? How are relationships forged? What is remembered and what is forgotten? How are children affected by their parents’ relationship?
This is a sad story, well told, highlighting the destructiveness of systemic racism, and the damage which still lingers today caused by cultural imperialism.
My thanks to NetGalley and The Borough Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was a very enjoyable and intriguing book. Ostensibly a whodunnit, it also had strong underlying themes of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the plight of Aboriginal children. Highly recommended.

Oooh boy, The Silence is a great debut crime novel from a writer who is most definitely one to watch. Set in both 1997 and 1967 in Sydney, Australia it is a searing read about the disappearance of a woman, marriage, family, ethics and a dark chapter in Australia’s history.

Isla, asleep in her basement flat in London is awoken by a phone call by her father, Joe, who lives on the other side of the world in Australia. He is calling to tell her that there is an investigation into the disappearance of their neighbour, Mandy thirty years ago. Her father has died, leaving her an inheritance and her brothers are trying to track her down. She was estranged from her family so when they approach Mandy’s husband, Steve, they are surprised to find that they separated three decades earlier. He last saw her in Sydney when he left due to her relationship with Joe. Isla’s dad was the last person to see Mandy alive, and he swears that he didn’t harm her. But where is she?

Returning to Sydney rakes up memories and emotions in Isla which she has left buried. Flitting between 1997 and 1967 we are privy to Isla’s childhood, her parent’s marriage and Mandy and Steve’s relationship. It makes for riveting and emotional reading.

We get to know Mandy, a woman who is trying for a baby with her husband but who doesn’t really want to be a mother and we discover that she and Isla’s mother were close friends. It was she who Isla’s mother confided in when suffering problems in her marriage to Joe, and it was she who babysat Isla. She’s a flawed character, on the surface a loving wife but secretly she wants out of the marriage, and she certainly doesn’t want to have Steve’s baby.

Isla’s memories of her childhood are peppered with Mandy, but one day Mandy was gone. Her memories also recollect an unhappy homelife. Her parents emigrated to Australia and whilst Joe is settled and happy and can’t see a time he’d return to the UK, her mother is desperately homesick. Throw in a burgeoning alcohol problem in Joe and Isla’s childhood was unsettled and distressing.

On the surface this is a crime novel, but it is actually far more than that. This book delves deep into a myriad of themes in the form of marriage and alcoholism, but the thing which affected me most was the exploration of Australia’s treatment of indigenous Australians. I had no idea that the indigenous children were taken from their parents by the police and put in children’s homes to be given to white families. It makes for shocking and appalling reading, but is elegantly and sensitively handled.

I love a dual timeline novel where past secrets foreshadow modern day events and The Silence handles this with aplomb.I was entranced with the plot and, oddly for me, didn’t second guess what was going on at all. I wanted to let the narrative unfold for itself and I am so pleased that I did because it is beautifully written.

I’m so impressed by this novel. It’s a mystery with a lot of heart and compelling characters and the searing heat pours from the pages, reflecting the often claustrophobic and oppressive events in the book. I love books set in Australia and this is up there with Jane Harper’s as an evocative and compelling read.

#TheSilence #NetGalley
A must read.
A basement flat in Hackney Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father, phoning from Sydney.
30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of summer 1967, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared. At the time, it was thought she had gone to start a new life; but now Mandy’s family is trying to reconnect, and there is no trace of her. Isla’s father Joe was allegedly the last person to see her alive, and now he’s under suspicion of murder.
I loved it from starting to ending. .
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for giving me an advance copy.

THE SILENCE is the story of two families living next door to each other in 1960s Australia and the devastating decisions they make that impact their lives for decades to come. It is delicate and slow-moving; its revelations ease into view and offer considerations on marriage and parenthood, masculinity, expectation, and the cataclysmic effects of our country's racist political practices. The story is immersive, and the characters are reasonably well-drawn. I enjoyed the trips back and forth in time, taking note of generational differences between eras. My only cynicism would be the predictability of the ending: I found myself hoping the story might offer a more thrilling wrap-up to book-end the rather pulsing opening, but this was not to be. This doesn't mean, though, that the end was unsatisfying.

THEN 1967 – On a quiet street by the sea, two young couples live as next-door neighbours.

Mandy and Steve Mallory‘s marriage is floundering. Mandy fears she is falling out of love with Steve, a policeman, who is finding his job too difficult… Steve longs for a child, whilst Mandy doesn’t think their marriage is a strong enough one to raise children. Steve’s job requires that he forcefully remove Aboriginal children from their homes and the emotional toll it takes on him brings him to a breaking point.

Louisa and Joe Green also have their troubles. Joe is content with his life in Australia, whilst Louise is homesick and longs to return to England. They are the parents of a four-year old daughter, Isla.

NOW 1997 – The young girl Isla is now in her thirties and living in London, England. A phone call from her beloved father sees her flying back to Australia. Once there, old secrets and vague memories come to light.

MY THOUGHTS

It is always a treat when you read a debut novel that is written with the skill of a more seasoned novelist. “The Silence” is just such a book.

This is a book about dysfunction. In families and in social justice. Rife with family secrets, shame, moral quandaries, apologies, and betrayal, the novel depicts how secrecy, alcoholism, adultery, and spousal abuse all serve to play a part in the history of two neighbouring families.

Also, the book sheds light on a fact of Australian history that I was previously unaware of. “The Great Australian Silence” which saw children of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples forcefully removed from their families and rehoused. These children are sometimes referred to as “Australia’s Stolen Generations“.

One wee quibble I had was the use of the word ‘but‘ at the end of myriad sentences. Then, I realized it might very well be an Australian colloquialism. It seemed to translate as the word though… (Eg. “Her roses were doing well, but.” and “Bad posture, but.”

Since this is a debut novel, I had absolutely no expectations going in. I discovered it to be a domestic thriller expertly blended with social history. A well researched, skillfully written novel that will likely make my ‘Best of 2020’ list.
Highly recommended!

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, and the author Susan Allott.
I really enjoyed this mystery thriller. It had a great story arc and I was gripped. It has echoes of 'Girl on the Train', with alcoholism, unreliable memories and narrators playing a key part.
The parallel narrative around the Aboriginal 'Stolen Generation' and Australia's colonial past was particularly interesting. Would highly recommend if you are a fan of this genre (Jane Harper fans in particular). 4 stars.

I’ve wanted to read this book for a while because I heard such good things about it. So I was delighted to be asked to take part in the blog tour. This book is everything I hoped and more. It’s the kind of mystery I love, full of unreliable narration and misdirection, where nothing is what you think it is. I got so caught up in the characters and their stories I didn’t want it to end. The book uses one of my favourite narrative structures, time shifts, moving between the present and back to thirty years ago, the last time Mandy was seen and gradually moving forward until all the threads finally meet. It’s clear someone is lying and its unlikely Mandy could have lived for thirty years and left no trace of herself anywhere. What is the truth? This is a complex, twisting narrative with insights into neighbours and marriages. The book also touches on the struggles of Aboriginal people. The more I read the most questions I had and the more I had to read to finally get the answers. What happened to Mandy? Why was Louise so unhappy in Sydney? Why did Louise leave and why did she come back? What happens to the Aboriginal kids Steve takes away, supposedly for his job as a police officer?

The Silence is a beautifully written, deeply moving and gripping book about a shocking piece of Australian/ British history which I knew nothing about.

Told in two timelines separated by thirty years the author definitely doesn’t shy away from educating the reader or the painful and quite horrifying treatment of aboriginal children in the sixties. The story was quite uncomfortable to read about at some points and I felt quite sick as I learned about everything they experienced.

The characters were all very interesting creations although there weren’t many that I actually liked. All of them seemed very realistic as they all had flaws due to keeping everything buried and this helped me care even more about the story as I could see the affect everything had had on people.

I thought this story was very atmospheric with the Australian heat helping to describe the tensions that were simmering beneath the surface. The extra storyline of what had happened to Maddie added an intriguing second storyline to run alongside the main one and I found myself wondering how everything would fit together. I can’t believe this is the author’s debut novel and I really look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Borough Press for my copy of this book via Netgalley.

I am absolutely stunned, luckily not into silence, that this is a debut novel. It is a richly drawn narrative of a time in Australia that I knew very little about, the forced removal of aboriginal children by the government into institutions and the disappearance of Mandy from thirty years ago.

Told in dual timelines, thirty years apart, 1967 and 1997 this is a slow simmering novel of unhappy lives and marriages. Of alcoholism and the violence that follows and long held family secrets.

You will not like the characters, you will be sick to the stomach at the abuse of the aboriginal children and horrified that these events actually happened. But this is definitely a story that needed to be told.

Then on top of all that emotion there is also the addition of the mystery. Did Isla’s father murder Mandy and how much did her mother know? All is perfectly revealed and kept me guessing.

Highly atmospheric, and having read this in our 30+ degree heatwave, I almost felt I was in scorching Australia. The author’s note was a perfect denouement and the title is very fitting to the “Great Australian Silence”.

‘The Silence’ deals with the sensitive subject of forced separation of children from their aboriginal parents during the 1960’s in Australia and its done with aplomb. It centres around the mystery of a missing woman who was Isla’s neighbour in this era but at a later date, the late 1990’s she has only been declared as being missing then.

This book reels you in slowly but then seduces you with the character of Mandy, the missing woman. How I wanted to be on that beach with her and Isla and then sitting in the back yard. She was very easy to envisage. This isn’t a book that is going to fill you with joy, far from it. It feels like everything in this situation is hopeless. All the characters have no hope left in their lives and it was shattering reading some of the passages. I can’t really say too much as it gives away plot lines and that would spoil your enjoyment of reading this book.

The narrative deals mainly with the missing neighbour but in the background is the forced separation subject. Some of the scenes were the children were being removed were horrible but what got me was the image of Mandy’s husband and his reaction to having to carry out these separations. It’s a shameful period of Australian history and thankfully it has been portrayed in this way. It has been written with an empathic hand though and by the end of it I was heartbroken over the ending of this part of the book. It was heartfelt and poignant and there is one scene in particular I will remember for quite awhile.

This is a slow paced thriller and the beauty of this is in the unrevealing of all the plot point and them coming together in a satisfying conclusion. You would not think that this is Susan’s debut novel as it is filled with touching moments, words and scenes which stop you in your tracks, slow burning but completely enticing. You need to read it!

A brilliantly crafted literary mystery that is beautifully written and wonderfully plotted, Susan Allott’s The Silence is an atmospheric and beguiling thriller that will blow readers away.

The piercing sound of a telephone ringing in the night is never a good sign and that proves to be true in 1997 for Isla Green who gets a call from her frantic father Joe in Sydney. This phone call is going to force her to face the dark secrets in her father’s past and bring to light shocking and life-changing revelations that have been buried for over thirty years. Is Isla prepared for the shocking discoveries she is about to uncover? Should some secrets stay dead and buried? Or is it only Isla’s tenacity and determination to bring the past to light that can lay old ghosts to rest?

Thirty years ago in the scorching summer of 1967, the Green’s next door neighbour Mandy had disappeared. Joe had thought that she had moved onto pastures new and had gone to make a fresh start elsewhere. However, it seems that there was something sinister Joe hadn’t even considered going on, because Mandy’s family had got in touch and asked him about her whereabouts. With Joe being the last person to have seen Mandy alive, he finds himself under suspicion of murder.

With her whole world falling apart and determined to clear her father’s name, Isla heads back to Sydney and begins to look into the events of that sweltering summer of 1967. As she begins to dig deep into the lives of two seemingly ordinary couples living in a quiet street by the sea, Isla begins to untangle the twisted secrets of what really happened behind closed doors all those years ago. Thirty years is a very long time for a secret to stay buried and as Isla creeps ever closer to finding out the truth, she begins to wonder how well she knows her parents. Is her father capable of murder? What was her mother’s role in this sinister drama? And what of the jaw-dropping secret the entire community has been enthralled to? And is there some link to Australia’s colonial past tied into Mandy’s disappearance?

Isla will not rest until she gets to the truth – even if her discoveries might just end up rocking the foundations of her entire existence and make her question how well she knows her family.

The Silence is a tale of dangerous secrets, the lengths people go to to protect their loved ones and twisted loyalties that grabs a hold of the reader from the first page and keeps them spellbound throughout. Susan Allnott has a hypnotic writing style that compels readers to keep turning the pages as they find themselves completely immersed in this immensely satisfying thriller.

A must-read for fans of Jane Harper and Helen Fitzgerald, Susan Allnott’s The Silence is an impressive debut thriller from a writer to watch out for.

I read this for a blog tour.

This was really interesting, what seemed to be a crime novel about a missing woman turned into an exploration of a dark chapter in Australia's (and Britain's) history - the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families.

A moving and fascinating look into the personal and political and how those can entwine. Timely and powerful, this lingers in the mind long after the final page.

The Silence by Susan Abbott is a book with many layers, deeply moving and gripping. Isla is in her thirties and in 1997, living in London. She receives a phone call from her dad in Australia ,telling her he is being questioned about, Mandy, a girl that occasionally babysat for Isla herself and lived next door, who went missing thirty years previously.Isla returns to her homeland and childhood home. The story time slips back to1967 as well as keeping us up to date with the present day. We discover the state of the marriages between Mandy and her husband, Steve, who was a policeman who had to remove Aboriginal children from their homes and place them in a state institution, a generation of children now known as the "Stolen Generation", and Isla's parents too.
This subject alone is horrific and a shameful part of Australia and the UK 's past but has been written in a way that it does not weigh too heavily within the story. We see, Isla, with her own problems attempting to get to the bottom of the fact that her father is under suspicion and what really happened to Mandy. Will she really wish she hadn't or not?
I found this a very character driven plot and found it a very impressive story, which led me to search out more about the "Stolen Generation". which is not a nice read alone, but I am glad I did those children deserve to be acknowledged. The setting of the book made me feel I was there and the writing was so skilful weaving the past and present together and moving the story forward in the authors own way. All in all, an educational, gripping and tense read at times, one which I am very glad to have had the chance to read. Thank you to Random Things Tours and Netgalley, for the ARC to review this book today.

Susan Allott's impressive debut puts suburban neighbourhoods under the microscope, takes a deep dive into the fractures of family relationships, and reveals the heart-breaking realities behind Australian's stolen generations. 

The Silence revolves around Isla, a young woman living in London and called home to suburban Sydney when her father becomes the main suspect in a decades old disappearence. As Isla investigates Mandy's disappearence, she uncovers long-buried secrets that lie at the heart of her parent's relationship - and is forced to come to terms with the legacy that these have left within her own life.

Although not an easy read by any means, The Silence makes for a thought-provoking and gripping investigation of familial and societal trauma, covering issues of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, PTSD and, most importantly, the danger that can be caused by the silences we refuse to acknowledge in our lives.

Alternating beween 1997 and 1967, this is a slow-burning mystery with a compelling core. Although all of the characters are severely damaged in their own ways, I found myself caught up in what was happening to them and desperate to find out how their present days lives had been shaped by the events of a long-ago summer. 

With shades of both Jane Harper and Celeste Ng, The Silence is a meaty and compelling slice of domestic suburban noir.

The Silence by Susan Allott is a heart-breaking and an enlightening read. Susan Allott explores a part of Australian history in her debut novel, which I’m ashamed to say, I never even knew about. It made me wonder why this part of history isn’t taught in schools or more widely known. What Susan Allott describes in her book is truly horrific, and it compelled me to find out more about what happened. This is what made reading the author notes at the end of the book, all the more interesting.

The novel is set in 1997. We meet Isla, who is at home in London when she receives a call from her dad early in the morning. The call is an alarming one. The police are investigating her dad on being involved in the disappearance of one of their neighbours thirty years earlier. The woman, Mandy, used to look after Isla when she was a child growing up in Australia in the late sixties. But her dad was the last person to see Mandy alive. Isla must return home to Australia and confront the awful truth that her father may not be the man who she thought she knew.

Susan’s writing really drew me into this tale. There’s a dark sense of foreboding right from the beginning, and I felt that nothing was as it seems. After Isla travels back to Australia to be with her family, Susan then takes us back to 1967. The events that take place in these chapters lead up to Mandy’s disappearance and the uncomfortable truth. It is in this part of the novel that Susan explores what happened to children of Aboriginal families during this period. This took place between 1910 and 1970. One of the characters, Steve, is a police officer, and he is charged with removing children from Aboriginal families. One young boy Steve takes a particular shine to, and he promises the boy’s mother that he will look after him and give him a good life.

Susan Allott weaves a cleverly constructed tale around these events. I could feel Steve’s longing to have a child of his own, particularly when Mandy, his wife, doesn’t appear keen to have children. I could understand why he wanted to raise the child he took as his own, but his decision that day was certainly not fraught with risk.

Isla puts herself close to danger as she fights to find the real truth behind Mandy’s disappearance and my eyes were kept glued to the pages as the Susan revealed what really happened.

The Silence is a compelling and powerful read. Susan Allott is a writer to watch.

Haven’t loved or hated this book.
It’s been an ok read which I have enjoyed unsure I would look up others but this has been a good read.

Beautiful & gripping mystery crime novel. Set in my absolute favourite place, the description of Sydney and it's surrounding areas allowed me to stand in Mandy's steps and walk through her last moments with her. If you like true crime or mystery, this is a fabulous book that keeps you gripped throughout. Family is a complicated business.

I think I’m going against the general opinion here but I found this book just depressing. Everyone had major issues and problems which seemed to result in them all singly making the most disastrous decisions.
I did enjoy the moving from one era to another but other than that I wasn’t impressed.

This book was a really interesting read, especially at this moment in time when racism, and atrocities committed against people of colour are in the news and on our minds, It also opened my eyes to a part of Australia I knew nothing about. Told across two time frames, the author deftly handles a sensitive part of Australia’s history while also creating tension through the mystery at the centre of the story.

In 1997, Isla lives in a basement flat in Hackney and struggles with alcoholism and depression caused by loneliness. One late night she receives a phone call from back home in Australia. Her father Joe is in trouble, after being questioned over the disappearance of a neighbour thirty years ago. Mandy had always been categorised as a missing person, but is now presumed to have been murdered. Joe was the last person to see her alive, So, Isla makes the trip back to Australia. I love the way the author creates tension between wanting to know what happened and wanting to leave the past where It is, buried. Despite her misgivings, Isla finds she must discover whether her father is capable of murder.

The past is 1960s Australia when Isla’s father Joe, and his wife Louisa have only been settled a short while. They live in suburbia next to neighbours Steve and Mandy. Each couple has their problems, while Joe loves hiSs new life his wife Louisa is miserable and can only think of going home. Next door, Mandy and Steve have a difficult relationship. Steve’s job is stressful. He’s a police officer, but we come to learn he is part of one of the biggest atrocities in Australian history. I learned something here, because although I knew about aboriginal children being rehomed in white families, I had no idea there was more than one indigenous Australian population, The Torres Strait Islanders lived on a series of islands off Queensland and are ethnically different from the aboriginal people. At this point in history there six a government policy to remove indigenous children from their families and settle the.m in respectable white families, Steve’s job is to do the removing, with a government official and it is starting to affect him. He comes home with the cries of the family ringing in his ears and he’s drinking much more than normal. Within this atmosphere, Mandy disappears and a thirty year mystery begins. Yet, when you unravel one secrets there are often many others in its wake.
I enjoyed this impressive debut and I thought the subject was handled well. It never felt that the story was tacked onto the issue or vice versa. The personal and historical blend together perfectly. I felt the book had the suspense that kept me reading and the detail to make it all feel real. A great read highlighting a disturbing period of Australian history.