Published : 2nd April 2020
Publisher : Century
Format : Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis
A lifetime of love. Six months of silence. One last chance.
Frank hasn't spoken to his wife Maggie for six months.
For weeks they have lived under the same roof, slept in the same bed and eaten at the same table – all without words.
Maggie has plenty of ideas as to why her husband has gone quiet, but it will take another heartbreaking turn of events before Frank finally starts to unravel the secrets that have silenced him.
Is this where their story ends?
Or is it where it begins?
My Review
Thank you so much to Anne Cater and Century for this beautifully written proof copy, I will not forget this one anytime soon.
I had heard lots of good things about this one and their was a lot of excitement around its release so when I was offered the chance to read and review a proof copy natural I jumped at the chance.
The synopsis sounded good and I thought it would be an interesting read. I had my reservations, a story about an older married couple who did not speak to each other anymore, would it be as unputdownable as I was hoping!
Well I think the fact that I finished it in twenty four hours answers that one!
This was such an amazing, heart pulling gripping read. Maggie and Frank are two characters that I fell completely and utterly in love with and found myself with a lump in my throat by the end of their beautiful story.
Initially the books starts with a prologue. Frank is upstairs playing chess against the computer when he hears the fire alarm going off, he doesn't think any thing of it and assumes his wife Maggie, who is downstairs making dinner will turn it off. When this doesn't happen he goes downstairs and sees the oven smoking, the dinner burning to a crisp, he doesn't notice Maggie on the floor uncounsious.
She had previously taken an overdose of sleeping pills. The end result of six months of a silent marriage. The ambulance is called and Maggie is taken to hospital.
The story then splits into two parts. Her silence and His silence.
This is the story of a family torn apart by secrets that Frank and Maggie kept in order to protect each other from a terrible truth.
It’s the story of two soul mates who have spent forty years together, through amazing highs and soul destroying lows whose worlds fall apart the night that Maggie decides to end Frank’s six months silence because she doesn't know what else she can do to make him talk to her again. Pleading, shouting and crying has not made Frank talk to her yet they still move around the house containing life in their routine that they have always done.
Maggie making the dinner, making sure Franks phone is always charged, Frank massaging his wife shoulder that seizes up in bed and every now and then finding each other under the covers.
Even though they move around like this Frank can not bring himself to talk to Maggie, because if he does confess, allow his guilt and grief to spill out then he is sure she will leave him and he can not bear that.
Maggie also has a secret, she has hidden it away for so long, knowing that if she too shares that guilt and grief that Frank she is sure will walk away and leave her alone. She cant bear to be left by frank so she hides it down and copes alone.
Maggie gave herself six months. If frank had not spoken to her by then she would write down everything that she had been keeping in and write it down over a span of the last seven days, on the last day she would take to many of her sleeping pills and leave her confession, her apology in the red planner they brought together in Paris years ago so he would understand.
I absolutely Love how this story was wrote. I fell in love with both characters instantly and found myself really feeling for them throughout the book, the story slowly shows you the life they have lived and everything they have gone through together. It is utterly heartbreaking yet at the same time so lovely that you can see that what they are trying to protect each other from is the exact thing that will bring them closer together.
Ultimately this is a story about tenderness and care, of marriage, grief and joy, despair and elation and above all about family and the love that holds us all together.
I HIGHLY recommend this read. you will not be able to put it down and will be left pondering about it long after you have finished gazing overs its emotionally taught pages.
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Meet the author
Abbie Greaves always dreamt of being an author.
She graduated in English literature from Cambridge University in 2014, where she wrote her dissertation on ellipsis (...), and then worked as an assistant in a leading London literary agency.
During that time, she worked in close association with some of the most well known names in the bestseller charts and also write her debut novel, The Silent Treatment.
She has always been obsessed by love stories and when writing her own, was drawn to exploring the idea of a life long love - what it takes to sustain it and what it might mean to experience it.
She now lives between Oxford and London where she writes full time and studies other couples in cafes, trying to work out their secret.
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