The Silence Paperback – March 1, 2020

Wonderful read with great character development and a slowly churning plot. I looked forward to evenings where I could just read this for hours and get lost in it.

This book was a thriller and a killer! The writer is intriguing, and the turn of events are expected.If you cans stomach IPV, this is a good read.

This book was hard to follow in the beginning. It's not until about midway that you realize the plot and start to understand what the author is trying to say. Overall, the ending was better than I thought.

I only see a few reviews and since I enjoyed the book quite a bit I decided to add my review. It definitely has quite a bit of mystery, with some "thriller" aspects added. I felt as if I was holding my breath while reading it and I had to finish it to emotionally exhale. I know there are moments in the book that I had to slow my reading down to make sure I knew exactly what was going on, but overall the book was engaging and a great read on a day off. The descriptions were not overly done, but just right so I could imagine the scene and people as the story unfolded. Definitely pleased with my First choice read this month. I started by reading the prolouge and was hooked, so I ordered it and was engaged the whole time.

Read The Silence while in North Carolina at the beach. Enjoyable summer read, although the plot was somewhat predictable. I’ll look into more books authored by Daisy Pearce.

Good grief this had me on pins and needles. I’m always on the hunt for a great story and this one did not disappoint. It was so good I had to stop my self on a few occasions from skipping ahead! I kept finding myself wanting to use the X-Ray to peek near the back, it was that good! And the narrator was super amazing as well! Great talent! Thank you for a wonderful story, I loved it!

I am an avid reader and can plow through books very quickly in a few days if on vacation. I downloaded this at the airport in Newark on my way to Frankfurt and could not put it down. Once I arrived at my hotel I continue reading instead of taking a nap I really needed after a red eye flight. and finish the book because I needed to know the ending. I was so captivated in this story. I hope she writes more books soon. I’m sure her topics resonates with me because I have had girl friends find themselves in similar situations and I’m glad I was able to help them escape

I'm glad I chose this as my Amazon First Reads book despite the negative reviews it already had. You can get the premise from the description of the book and other reviews, so I'll just say that I found it enjoyable and very hard to put down.Sure, you know what's happening and the main character, Stella, seems to take too long to notice. But it's not like it's supposed to be a secret that Marco is gaslighting Stella, he's none too subtle and her friends, particularly her best friend, Carmel, can see right away how manipulative he is. But it's the anticipation of when or if she finally snaps that keeps the story moving. It became more interesting to me when he secrets her away to his cottage and it takes complete strangers to open her eyes to what's really happening. The people she meets here are some very interesting characters and I think that had the story been shortened, and if her time here began earlier, it would have flowed better and been more engrossing.Anyone who struggles with anxiety, paranoia, and addiction can relate to Stella's mindset and her constant doubts about what's happening. But even someone so thoroughly mixed up emotionally can see that a partner is supposed to support them, not make them constantly feel worse about themselves. Waiting for Marco to get what he deserves will drive you to the very end. I really liked this book and am so happy I've found another new author to enjoy!

I was hooked from the very first page and wondered from the beginning where the story could possibly go. Kept in suspense as each chapter unfolded and completely engaged until the very end. The style of writing suited me perfectly. No dragging on of plots, no side stories to bulk the novel, just class from the word go.

As I read “The Silence”, I developed a “love-hate” relationship with each chapter. It was a book I couldn’t put down; suspense and fear enveloped me as the characters and story were revealed. I’m so glad that I persevered at the beginning as now i am able to highly recommend this as a great read.

I was instantly hooked by Daisy Pearce’s debut novel, The Silence. This is a claustrophobic and tense read that I finished in just a couple of sittings. The lead character, Stella Wiseman, is a former childhood television star; she was cast in a popular children’s television show. When she falls head over heels for Marco, she thinks everything in her life is about to change for the better, but soon she begins to realise that Marco may not be everything that he seems.This story may seem familiar to psychological readers, but what I loved about it was Daisy Pearce’s taut writing which draws you into Stella’s perspective. This is as she first gets involved with Marco, and when she then learns the uncomfortable truth about him. I could see the relationship that was beginning to blossom between them and at this stage, I didn’t want anything to go wrong, even though you know that something is going to happen. I could see how anxious she was beginning to feel. This is also, especially when Stella starts to get her name in the press again.Daisy’s writing makes this a read a very easy one to get into, and once I started, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. Stella is a very well-formed character, and I liked the relationship that she has with her friend, Carmel, which is one of the strong points of the novel. Their dialogue is full of wit and brings their characters to life. I could instantly see their personalities coming out through their conversations which Daisy did really well.I think there were times when I really wanted to yell at Stella for the choices that she was making. I think she may frustrate many readers, and at this point, I wanted to find out how things were going to play out for her and Marco as their relationship developed. You can see the walls in their relationship beginning to crumble, and I was waiting for the moment when everything was going to come crashing down, and there is in an explosive finale. This is what makes it a really tense read, as I could sense what was going to happen between Marco and Stella. Through Daisy’s writing, it makes it seem as though the walls are closing in.I loved the Cornish setting, and Daisy Pearce describes this really well in her writing. You can picture the sea crashing against the cliffs and the sprawling landscape around the cottage where Stella is staying. I also thought it was really atmospheric as well, particularly in the final scenes when the fog rolls in, you can see that this is what’s going to make things even more difficult for Stella in the final few chapters. This is where Daisy Pearce builds the tension really well. Also, London is painted vividly as well. I knew a lot of the locations Daisy was referring to and I could see them really clearly in my mind.The Silence is a confident and a well-written thriller that will keep you reading well into the night, yes it is familiar in the psychological thriller genre, but it is really enjoyable. I think Daisy Pearce is an author I will be sticking with and I’m keen to see what she releases next.

I found this a bit hard going to start with but the pace increased when Stella was moved by Marco into the country. It was an interesting story.

The Silence is a well-written book and I will certainly read more from Pearce in the future, but it’s a plot that I’ve read before. There’s a current trend of authors relying on an unreliable female narrative to help develop their thrillers so, unfortunately, it all felt obvious from the start, for me.The story reminds me a lot of The Wife Between Us, as you can easily make the assumptions that our female lead is being taken advantage of, with her fragmented memory only telling us half of the story. But it doesn’t leave much up to the imagination, as it’s obvious from the synopsis alone which character is behind everything going on.There is a lot that still needs to be pieced together regarding exactly how the story is going to play out, but because you know that Stella is going to lose everything close to her before eventually regaining some control, I didn’t have a lot of patience with her narrative.The problem is that she isn’t a very sympathetic character. Usually, you can understand why a character is made to behave the way they do, seeing the pressures around them build up which help you to understand why they so reluctantly give in to the abusive natures of others. But Stella comes across self-destructive and weak from the start, seemingly allowing herself to manipulated and pushed around which is what makes it so difficult to sympathise with her.This is only made worse by the fragmented structure of the story which becomes quite irritating, constantly jumping ahead in time to reflect on Stella’s lack of memory. Because we don’t see the abuse at the start and only see her downing more and more pills as she hangs on to Marco’s every word, there’s too much that we’re missing out on for us to really engage with her. And him. Without getting to know Marco at all, either, it’s no wonder we don’t trust him from the start, so there’s not a lot of mystery left behind his motives to consider the possibility that it might be somebody else.I guess this is the trouble with vulnerable characters, as you really need to get inside their heads to understand their actions. But whilst it’s obvious that Stella is an incredibly fragile character, I don’t think this was explored well enough in the beginning. The themes explored are heavy – including addiction, grief, mental health issues, and abusive relationships – but it just doesn’t have the impact it needs. It doesn’t feel personal, and that’s my main struggle with the story as I couldn’t get past the predictability of it all.Towards the end, Stella does reflect back on some of her memories, revisiting scenes that she had blanked out to reveal what was actually going on at the time, but it’s all too late. The gaslighting subplot does give the story a sense of originality and it is this aspect that keeps your interest piqued, but the parts of the story that I was more interested in weren’t explored well enough in the end.With the author being a huge fan of Stephen King, The Silence combines its mystery thriller genre with something more supernatural. You can see King’s influences throughout, almost acting as the gloomy, moist figure that creeps around the cottage himself. But neither genres are explored to their full potential. I would have been more than happy for the strange ongoings to be an actual ghost, but it’s never explained how much was going on in Stella’s head and how much was actually happening.Moving the setting from London to a coastal town in Cornwall, it’s obvious that Pearce is a good writer as she uses beautiful imagery throughout. Being born in Truro, as well, she has a great understanding of the surroundings she writes about. Although the town of Tyrlaze is fictional, she describes the fog-heavy cliffs of the town well, mustering the senses of an often grey but always salty-scented feel of a Cornish town brilliantly.There are also many tense moments that take place in the cottage and cliff side as Pearce does do well to build up the tension, another credit to her writing, but it’s just because I’ve read many similar stories that the revelations didn’t work for me.So, whilst The Silence undeniably has some promising elements, it was too similar to other thrillers that I have read for me to get into the concept fully. In the end, it just feels like another example of a book that if you’re new to the thriller genre, then this will make for a great first read, but for fans of the genre already, it doesn’t add anything new, just the potential of a great author to keep an eye on.