An arresting and hypnotising novel in a high victorian gothic style, this books drew me in and had me captivated from the start. A chance encounter between Edward Ashmore-Percy, haughty and handsome mill owner and Henry Latimer, recently widowed failed poet leads to a chain of events that are horrifying and disturbing in their restraint of description and the implications behind Henry's discoveries that are never quite explicitly shown.

There is a wonderfully spooky atmosphere and anxiety that is sustained throughout as the consequences of the Ashmore-Percy's theft of spiders to drive their silk mill has more consequences for many more people than might have been anticipated.

The book is as disorienting to the reader as to the characters under the spell of the silk, its stories as skilfully woven together.

An astonishing idea that is well executed. It is set over two time frames, in a version of the nineteenth century, in a fictional town in England and an island in Greece,
This is a story where ambition ans greed leads to hardship, despair and deprivation. The writing is atmospheric and dark, but the promise of friendship and maybe even love lifts the reader, along with the ominous but intriguing presence of the silk spun by the spiders stolen from Greece. I didn’t want to put it down until I found out what happened
to Henry, the main character in the later timeframe. :He was both endearing and infuriating, but I cared.
The Silence Factory would be a good young adult read and would also make a fabulous film.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊.

I found The Silence Factory to be a challenging read - as sticky and beguiling as the spider webs spun throughout its pages. Collins has an incredible knack for wrangling prose; gothic and poetic and incredibly, viscerally grim at times. I found myself highlighting more than a few passages to return to because the images she evoked were so wonderfully immersive and vivid. For a book about senses, it's no surprise that they're played upon so much. The actual nitty-gritty writing here is fantastic, but it was the emotional tether to the characters (or lack thereof) that I struggled with.

I found the prologue incredibly disjointed and difficult to wade through, though I suspect part of that was laying the groundwork for the echoes and confusions that are part and parcel of the narrative. As a result, I felt a little alienated by the text (which extended to a prolonged detachment from the protagonists). And that's where my main qualm with The Silence Factory lies - I really didn't get on with the protagonists. Without delving too far into spoiler territory, I found the MMC Henry to be spineless, naïve and far too much of a bootlicker. His propensity to self-gaslight became incredibly wearisome after a time. I so desperately wanted to connect with him, but the man made it difficult!

I'm sure fans of gothic and Victorian fiction will find lots to love here. Weirdly, the book it most reminded me of was Babel (R.F. Kuang) - not an 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 read, per se, but with lots of nuggets of images and ideas, and something important to say.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭."

Sophia, a pregnant English woman has been drugged and taken against her will by her husband to a ship escaping back to England from a remote Greek Island where he has stolen magic silk spinning spiders from a sacred place his wife was shown by an islander she had befriended. Like Arachne, the weaver who was turned into a spider, Bridget Collins in her latest novels spins and weaves an epic tale in a gothic Victorian fantasy world using the lush and vivid prose that have become her hallmark. You will be pulled into her spider web. The Silence Factory is just as engaging and page turning as her other novels for adults starting with The Binding. A great immersive read.

This book was so enjoyable in many different ways. Starting in the 1820’s in a Greek island when James who is already wealthy is trying to track down mysterious spiders that spin silk with mysterious properties. He wants to further improve his fortune and also establish himself as a man of science to be respected. He does treat his wife Sophia dreadfully [and indeed there was only one man in the whole book who shows any kindness] but eventually they return to England so that his lace factory can be be converted to making the silk.
Then two generations later Sir Edwards mill is struggling financially and enlists the help of Henry Latimer who originally came to the family estate to provide hearing instruments for his deaf daughter.
The spider silk has amazing properties in that depending on how it is folded , it can reduce the noise of the outside world and bring peace and conversely seems to disturb and adversely effect those in the vicinity. So the townsfolk around the mill have strange maladies as well as the usual deafness from working in the hellish conditions in the mills. So deafness is a recurring theme in the book as is unusual emotional longing which again seems to be a side effect from the silk.
I laughed at one of the desperate plans to save the factory by adapting the silk to subdue workforces to make them compliant.
Just when I thought the book would fizzle out in the failure of the mill there was a reconnection to Henry’s past that made for an interesting finish.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC

The Silence Factory is a standalone gothic suspense/ fantasy. It mainly follows the perspective of Henry Latimer, a widower employed to help Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy's deaf daughter. Henry is drawn into Sir Edward's business of selling magical spider silk fabric. There are also journal entries interspersed in between some of Henry's chapters which belong to Sophia Ashmore-Percy from decades prior when Sophia and her husband James arrived in Greece, searching for the spiders.

The world was unexpected - it is grounded in the past and the spider silk is both mystical yet believable. I thought it was a completely unique premise, and it was so interesting. I loved the dual effect of the silk and how it drove the story.

Because of the 1800s time period, Sophia's POVs use more formal, archaic language, however it didn't take me long to adjust and I found them authentic. The language and style didn't reduce my enjoyment of her chapters, and I was just as intrigued by her story as Henry's. At the start of the book, I was really rooting for both Sophia and Henry (and their relationships with Hira and Sir Edward), and then the plot properly kicked in. The development (or decline?) of the characters during the book was really well done. It was so gradual, creepy and atmospheric.

I'd like to specifically mention a trigger warning for baby loss. Although there are other more general trigger warnings for the gothic genre like mental health, baby loss is a specific one that may affect some readers.

I've had a bad run with gothic novels recently, with the last three I read all ending up with a three star rating, so I was starting to think that maybe it was just a me/gothic fiction incompatibility issue, but this grabbed me straight away. I read this book all in one go, basically without coming up for air because the plot had me completely gripped. I guess I thought that it was going to be more of a gothic romance, but once the story started to develop, I was just along for the ride and I loved it exactly as it was.

This was a completely original novel, and for once a book described as gothic truly hit the mark for me. It 100% committed to the story and to the genre, which set it apart for me. It's hard to go into more detail about my thoughts on this book without venturing into spoiler country and I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that I think this book will stay with me for a while.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from NetGalley, but this is my voluntary and honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.
I haven’t read any of the author’s previous novels but found this book to be a work of magical Gothic style.
With two points of view woven through (of which I had more sympathy for Sophia’s tale) it tells the story of a unique silk created from a spider found only on a Greek island. The attitudes of wealthy men of the period towards women, indigenous people and the poor is deftly woven and there is a sense of comeuppance as the novel concludes. However, the ending felt a little contrived in terms of Henry’s revelation; a little disappointing after an immersive read.

I found this a very difficult book to read, full of disappointments. The subject matter was really interesting, a novel idea.....but the backstory of mysogeny and greed: the husband who cares not a jot for the emotional misery of his wife, nor the indigenous community, their beliefs and sacred wildlife made the pleasure of the book far less than it might have been.
The continuing story over following generations was tainted by similar traits. Yes, our lives aren't easy, but the book left me feeling quite despon - perhaps just a case of too much reality in one sitting.

This was not what I was expecting when I started to read and i have to say that it was not my scene at all as the story was too much fantasy for me However it is well written and when I was 80% of the way through th story I suddenly wanted to keep reading to discover the ending. Becuse of the way that this is written and the fact that I believe that if fantasy had been my read then my dislike of it means that instead of 3 stars I give it 4 stars as I believe that it deserves recognition

I loved Bridget Collins’ last two novels so much I was almost nervous to read this one in case it didn’t live up to my feverish expectations. I was wrong: in THE SILENCE FACTORY she has created another world that exists on the edge of time and magic. Epic in scope and rich at sentence level, this is storytelling at its most immersive.

This was my first Bridget Collins book and overall I found it enjoyable. It follows the story of Henry Latimer, who works as an aurist for his father-in-law and is trying to come to terms with the loss of his wife. He meets Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy who is attempting to find a way to enable his deaf daughter to hear and speak. Whilst attempting to help Sir Edward's daughter, Henry becomes enthralled in Sir Edwards work attempting to sell "silence" through the spider silk spinning factory he owns, producing sound-dampening, and highly expensive, silk.

This novel left me feeling confused for much of it, but not in a bad way. It's the kind of Gothic, magic-tinged story which leaves you knowing something weird is going on but not being able to put your finger on what. I enjoyed Henry as a character though I was left cringing often at his terrible decision making and inability not to do the most embarrassing thing possible at every opportunity presented to him.

The relationships created in this book initially intrigued me however, I was left a little disappointed by the ending. Perhaps I'm reading into things too much, or perhaps I'm too stupid to grasp the hidden explanations, but I thought there would be some greater reason for the events of the book. Coming to the end and realising there was not made the relationships feel unrealistic and overly-dramatic and left me feeling like there was something missing.

All in all, an enjoyable read and one that I think many fans of Gothic, historic fiction would enjoy. Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free e-Arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Bridget Collins' first novel "The Binding" is still one of my favourites, and she has an almost lyrical, beautiful writing style that fits her unique ideas very well. While I wasn't a fan of her subsequent novel, "The Betrayals", I was eager to delve into her new release. The description reads incredibly intriguing and has just that weird surreal vibe I love about Collins' work, so I was very lucky to get an arc for "The Silence Factory".

This is a dual pov novel set both in the early 19th century, where Sophia is our narrator and on a quest with her husband to find some mythical spiders, and decades later, when young widower Henry meets Sophia's great nephew who uses the very same spiders to produce a new kind of silk able to completely erase sound - but also has some quite horrifying qualities.
Both povs are interesting, though I sadly wasn't that emotionally invested in either of them. Collins' writing is beautiful as ever, but this time I felt weirdly detached from anything going on and I didn't get attached to any of the characters. I found Sophia, in general, the more interesting character of the two, and her lovestory was beautifully told yet tragic. Henry was kind of... dull, to be honest, and for the life of me I could not understand his sudden fascination with Sir Edward. It felt forced and there was no real exploration of these feelings. I did read it more like an obsession born from grief, but even then there was no real complexity to it. The plot was also very slow-moving and lost me during the middle parts, though the ending was pretty amazing.

The saving grace, for me, was primarily the atmosphere. Collins is a very atmospheric writer, and the gothic vibes were spot-on. I could hear the horrible factory, I could feel the workers' despair. She excels at this. Without this impeccable atmosphere, this would probably be more of a 2 star read because I did start skim reading after a while, which is never a good sign. But now I'd say this book is just mid. 2,5 stars, rounding up to 3 - but if you liked the author's previous work, I do recommend checking this one out.

The Silence Factory was a fascinating read and managed to drag me out of my reading slump. As someone who loved The Binding, I thought this was just as wonderfully written, with haunting prose and so much queer yearning that I almost started to root for Henry and Sir Edward despite everything. However, I felt the dual POVs didn't intertwine as much as I would have liked, though I will say the dramatic irony was very well-executed. Would recommend for fans of historical fiction/fantasy.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing a copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

Bridget Collins’ books seem to get better and better! I tried to savour this book but it was just too good and I rushed through it. This was gothic in feel- and the factory town of Telverton was sinister.I wasn’t really sure what to make of the main character- maybe *odd* covers it. Arachnaphobics beware! Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I have not read any previous works by this author, but will soon be putting that right! This was a fantastic read, whose dark, gothic atmosphere enfolds you like a cloak and transports you right into the plot.
Highly recommended.

Bridget Collins is a talented writer who creates familiar worlds with a twist. The Silence Factory has two timelines, two locations and two points of view. In early 19th century Greece Sophia writes in her journal of her travels with her abusive, neglectful husband James who is trying to make a name for himself through scientific research on a particular type of spider sacred to the women of the island. The diaries are poignant and evocative, particularly in Sophia's longing for a child and her friendship with local woman Hira.
In late 19th century England Sophia's nephew Edward owns a factory where silk is made from the spiders' webs. Edward is a brash, harsh capitalist who cares nothing for the lives of his workforce which are being destroyed by the factory conditions. On a visit to London Edward seeks a cure for his daughter's deafness (only because it embarasses him) and seduces young widower Robert who sells hearing aids in his father in law's shop. Robert becomes intricately involved in the silk business to the extent that he is initially naive and then intentionally collusive with the bad practice.
There is so much cruelty in this book that I can not say it was an enjoyable read but it was certainly very well written with superb use of language to describe the Greek island, the factory and the houses. The characters were well portrayed and the themes very clearly evoked through the plot. I was a little disappointed in the ending which I felt resolved things for Robert in a rather too neat way. I would also have liked to return to Hira after Sophia had been taken away from the island although I realise that this would only have been possible by adding another point of view.

Gothic sinister novel with a twist - quite good
Having read The Binding, I decided to read another novel by this author but regrettably it didn't enthrall me. The plot concerns Henry, an aurist from London, who becomes involved with a factory owner making silk from a particular species of spider. It's very much about this character and his interaction with a few other characters (not necessarily likeable) in a bit of a fantasy scenario as well as flashbacks regarding the origin of the spiders. There's a very dark side to the story and this is perhaps why I didn't enjoy it much. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you for the eARC, NetGalley and HarperCollins!

I've read and enjoyed both The Binding and The Betrayals, so of course I requested this as soon as I saw it on NetGalley!

The writing was great and it had a very unique and interesting concept. It certainly has gothic vibes, with Bridget Collins' signature magical element.

The book has two timelines: Sophia's pov, as she travels to Greece with her controlling husband, in search of a rumoured spider breed with magical qualities. The other pov is Henry, who is coincidentally thrust into the world of Sophia's great-nephew, the owner of a spider-silk factory.

I was interested in the story and curious to see where it would lead, but I didn't particularly care about the characters. The book lost me on the "relationships", which felt very forced and unlikely to me, unfortunately. It made Henry extremely unlikeable with how intentionally blind he was.
The magical element, while a unique concept, didn't lead to anything particularly interesting for me.

Overall, it didn't really stand out and won't be very memorable for me.

This is a good old-fashioned gothic novel, written in a Victorian style. As you might imagine, there are countless examples of attitudes that are no longer tolerated in civil society – misogyny, child-labour, cultural insensitivity and rapine, equation of disability with feeble mindedness, and snobbery to name but a few.
Henry Latimer, a widower aurist, is hired by Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy to try to get his deaf daughter, Philomel, to hear (and speak).
“He had never met a deaf-mute child; from the stories he had heard, they were sullen and feral, on the edge of idiocy, hardly human. This little girl, with her white-frilled pinafore and chalk-smudged cheek, left him entirely at a loss. She was a child like any other; a child like the one he and Madeleine might have had.”
Sir Edward is a stereotypical Victorian capitalist, who owns a factory spinning spider webs into a magical silk cloth that dampens sound. He says, he sells ‘silence’. He inherited his factory and the spiders from James, who stole the spiders from a Greek Island, where they were regarded with religious reverence. James cared nothing for the Greek natives, their religion or culture, and felt that as an Englishman he had the right to take what he wanted – for the advancement of science. Sir Edward cares nothing about the well-being of his workers (“there are always accidents”), only about his profit, and the promotion of his arain silk. The town, Telverton, and its inhabitants are grueomely blighted by the factory. Henry is not able to help Philomel, but can help Sir Edward (whom he regards as a great man) promote the silk.
The qualities of the silk are indeed wonderous – who hasn’t wished occasionally for quiet. But, it turns out that silence is not the only thing that the silk can be used for. Our nice Victorian novel goes from Gothic to full-on horror. As the friendly Quaker, Hinshaw points out:
“The imposition of silence on oneself may be a good; the imposition of it on anyone else is always an evil.”
The book has two connected story lines: one with Henry and Sir Edward, and the other with James, his maltreated wife, Sophia, and her Greek friend Hira. The characters of Sir Edward and James are odious cardboard stereotypes. But Henry and Sophia are well realised, and develop through the novel.
I enjoyed this book the more of it I read. There are characters to love, and to empathise with, and others to utterly detest. And a few horrifying twists.
Definitely recommended.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher.

This was another good read by Bridget Collins. I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, but I gave it a go because I loved The Binding.

I love how she weaves magic into historical fiction- I don't tend to like magical realism, but she does it so effortlessly.

I did get bored for the middle part. Admittedly, I skim read to the end because I lost interest. I did like the ending though.

I think I prefer when she writes in first person, but I liked Henry's character nonetheless. I liked Sophia too, but I got bored of her wanting to be a good wife - I get that this is due to the time period though.

Overall, I think a lot of people would really like this strange gothic story, so I'd rate it 3 stars.