Title: Silent Child
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
In the summer of 2006, Emma Price watched helplessly as her
six-year-old son's red coat was fished out of the River Ouse. It was the tragic
story of the year - a little boy, Aiden, wandered away from school during a
terrible flood, fell into the river, and drowned.
His body was never recovered.
Ten years later, Emma has finally rediscovered the joy in life. She's married, pregnant, and in control again...
... until Aiden returns.
Too traumatized to speak, he raises endless questions and answers none. Only his body tells the story of his decade-long disappearance. The historic broken bones and injuries cast a mere glimpse into the horrors Aiden has experienced. Aiden never drowned. Aiden was taken.
As Emma attempts to reconnect with her now teenage son, she must unmask the monster who took him away from her. But who, in their tiny village, could be capable of such a crime?
It's Aiden who has the answers, but he cannot tell the unspeakable.
My musings:
Silent Child deals with an intriguing and heart-breaking
premise – a child disappears when he is only six years old and is believed to
have drowned in the surging waters of a hundred-year flood. His mother Emma is
heartbroken, but has tried to finally move on ten years after the tragedy. She
has since married again and is expecting another baby in a few weeks time. Then
the unthinkable happens – a 16-year old lost and traumatised boy, found by a
motorist on a deserted road, turns out to be Emma’s son Aiden. Where was he in
the ten years he has been missing? And what has been done to him during that
time?
As a mother, there were many parts of the book that were disturbing
and gut-churning, and I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be in Emma’s
shoes. The joy of finding that your child is alive, and the heartbreak in
seeing that he is broken, damaged – no longer the innocent little boy you said
good-bye to at the school gates ten years ago. I listened to this book on
Audible, and the narrator Joanne Froggatt did an excellent job in bringing Emma
to life for me, her expressionate voice embodying Emma’s anguish and making
this a compelling story to listen to.
Set in a little Yorkshire town, the book contained all the
elements that make for an intriguing mystery: a small town setting with plenty
of odd people and possible suspects, an emotional connection to the main
character and a series of clues that slowly lead the reader to the conclusion.
There were a few red herrings thrown in to try and throw the avid armchair
detective off track, and it almost had me fooled, through I admit that the
conclusion didn’t come as a total surprise. However, the solving of the mystery
was never the main focus of this story for me, which dealt with Emma’s anguish as
she is trying to re-integrate her son back into her family. Her character is so
well depicted that my heart ached for her, and I often questioned what I would
do in a similar situation (God forbid!). And even though her judgment in the
people she surrounds herself with seemed to be particularly terrible, I thought
she made for a solid main protagonist that drove the story along well and kept
me emotionally involved. I admit that I was a tiny bit disappointed with the
final conclusion, expecting a bit more of a surprise and less suspension of
disbelief, but overall this was an enjoyable read for me.
Summary:
To summarise, if you are looking to be surprised and blind-sided and are looking for a complex and un-solvable mystery, this may not be the right book for you. But if, like me, you enjoy emotion-charged books about human relationships and people finding themselves thrown into impossible situations, then this is a good book to pick up. I thoroughly recommend the audio version, brought to life by Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt!
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