The Silence Project

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I think Carole Hailey is a fresh new voice and I will definitely look forward to anything else she writes. The Silence Project has a very interesting premise, one that really had my attention right from the start. When Emilia Morris is just thirteen, she watches her mother burn to death along with hundreds of others across the world. This baffling event has such an effect on people that no one could ever forget Rachel Chalkham, a phoenix who perished in fire. The book is divided into two parts. The first shows Emilia growing up witnessing her mother’s sudden change in behaviour where she forgoes everything and takes an oath of silence. The second, in which Emilia tries to understand the intricacies of the community that her mother created. Not all of the book is like this. The parts earlier on where Emilia shares her pain over her mother pulling away from her when she needed her most are gripping. OK, stop whatever you are doing, go online or head to your nearest bookshop and buy this book, do it, don’t think about it…just go and get a copy. I will be recommending this novel to everyone in the world; I will be exulting and extolling its consummate brilliance to anyone who will listen to a bold, bouncy, bookish former librarian…it is a masterpiece of literature, I can’t even bring myself to label it, some will undoubtly call it feminist or dystopian, but those monikers are just too narrow for the incredible scope, depth, content, and quality of this story. Personally, I think it is literary genius personified. Carole where have you been all my reading life, you are AMAZING, and your imagination and knowledge of social political & historical environs is incredible! If anyone thinks I am fan girling in this review…excuse me when I say… Hell Yes, I am…. Carole and her novel, deserve every iota of praise, I can give them!

As Emilia's story grows, Rachel's stability lessens. The community increases - worldwide as well as a massive amount of women in their little town. Like many people Rachel is concerned about the environment and overpopulation. She knows that politicians like the sound of their own voices and rarely listen to the people. I think the story behind this book is incredibly powerful. While I've read a lot of books about cults, this one was quite unique in its approach and extremely convincing. Where it fell down, I felt, was in the decision to write the book as Emilia's biography of her mother. This format made the book dry at times, and dragged out parts of the story, especially in the middle. Rachel’s messianic shadow looms heavy on all that happens after her, over the global actions of the Community as well as the lives of her husband and daughter. She is at once a malicious eminence grise and a scapegoat open to the projections of all.Emilia writes her memoir as an adult - focusing growing up as Rachel's daughter. The impact on her childhood - the loss of her mother yet she still had a mother. The impact on her father - his need to still help her even though he had been abandoned. The impact on the town - people supportive and angry, a strange dichotomy. When she publishes her own account of her mother’s life in a memoir called The Silence Project, Emilia also decides to reveal just how sinister the Community has become. In the process, she steps out of Rachel’s shadow once and for all, so that her own voice may finally be heard. Selection panel review

the highest aspirations of humanity, and to provide a forum for global concerns’. Allan’s experiences at the Rothko Chapel are recorded I've always found cults pretty fascinating, especially how people get drawn into them, and I think this book really captures how they are formed, and at times it did feel pretty true.

Atlantic Books acquires a revealing new history that uncovers the life of a powerful and charismatic Ancient Roman woman