Silent Child

Silent Child, Book 1

By: Sarah A. Denzil

Narrated by: Joanne Froggatt

Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of Audible UK’s 2017 Narrator of the Year Award

Introducing Audible's Thriller of the Year: Silent Child by Sarah A. Denzil, performed by Joanne Froggatt.

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 traumatised to speak, he raises endless questions and answers none. Where has he been? What happened to him on that rainy afternoon? And now that he's back, whom can he trust?

At Audible we love listening to crime books. But every so often one comes along that we think is truly special. An Amazon Kindle number one best-seller, Sarah A. Denzil's Silent Child is taking Audible HQ by storm. In an Audible Exclusive production, Joanne Froggatt (Mrs Bates, Downton Abbey) delivers a powerhouse performance that will keep you gripped until the very last second.

©2017 Sarah A. Denzil (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Critic reviews

"This self-published page-turner became essential poolside listening after Audible named it thriller of the year." ( Stylist)

Joanne Froggatt 💕

I rarely find a book I really like on Audible. Narration is a huge thing. Joanne Froggatt was simple AMAZING. I loved her on Downton Abbey. That said, her telling of the story was a beyond plus.

I love Gone Girl (like most people) and Karin Slaughter and Mary Kubica (who has seemed to drop off a bit just like B.A. Paris. However, I love a suspense book. Love.

I really liked this book. It did keep me guessing and normally most books put it out there from the beginning who the bad guy is, but tell you the story surrounding it. This book did keep me thinking...but wait, it's not that person? Wait? So it is a very good book and I'm stingy in my recommendations. I get bored easily and I like twisty books.

Would I have liked the book enough to read it? Yes, but the narration was off the charts great.

I highly recommend this book if you like suspense. I've been a bit bored with my Audible picks lately thinking if I read them, I probably could finish them. Good narration keeps me hanging on and bad narration just makes me mad. How do some of these people get hired?

Book...yes.
Narration...no doubt. Amazing. A+++++++

Exasperating

What disappointed you about Silent Child?

Most of the book was taken up by Emma's mental frailties and inability to cope with what was happening to her. Fine, but since this entire portion of the book was all done in first person (and from Emma's perspective) this aspect of the story dragged on and on like an unwelcome house guest. After about 20 chapters of Emma's whining my reaction was "enough already"!

Would you ever listen to anything by Sarah A. Denzil again?

Absolutely not.

What does Joanne Froggatt bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Joanne Froggatt was pretty much the only good thing about the book.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I listened to the entire book, mainly out of curiosity about how the plot would be finally resolved. Unfortunately, the final resolution of the plot was fraught with holes ending with what seemed to me to be a highly improbable and unsatisfying resolution. In other words, no, not really.

Any additional comments?

No idea how anyone could have given high ratings to this book. Simply awful.

Slowest "Thriller" Ever

I almost gave up on this one. I'd say 80% of this book lead up to a pretty good last 20% but OMGosh it took forever to get there. Way too much detail of nothing happening for me. Not one I'd recommend at all.

Tour de force by narrator Joanne Froggatt!

Silent Child is a very, very dark psychological thriller, the kind that can cause some to have nightmares. It is certainly not for everyone. However, as I try to decide whether listening was worthwhile, I must give the author credit for writing a compelling novel. And the narrator is fantastic.

Silent Child Swept Me Away For Two Days

I found this audiobook engrossing. The author took me places I did not expect or wish to go, and she worried me that I would not be able to sustain my interest--but I certainly did.

In short, a young child, Aiden Price, age six, disappears from his school after a terrible rainstorm. Ten years later he is found wandering the woods nearby. He is reunited with his mother but apparently due to sustained trauma, refuses to speak or provide any information about his captor or where he had been for the ten years.

I don't want to give away any more information. I just want to add that if the subject interests you, get the book and set aside plenty of listening time. You have nothing to lose and lots to enjoy.

The narrator does a bang-up job portraying Aiden's mother. If you were a fan of Downton Abbey, you will recognize her voice immediately--I promise you.

Stupid

The stupidest book I have ever listened to. The main character spent a lot of time yelling. When the narrator used a slightly different voice for one of the characters, it was a slurred whisper, that even after rewinding over and over I couldn't tell what a few crucial words were. After all the silly twists and turns other reviewers loved, at the short ending, we are left with a glimpse of sweetness and light, which after the events that happened would not be possible. I felt sorry for the baby girl that went thru all this in utro. Would ask for money back if I paid full price.

Highly over rated.

Despite my attempt, I was unable to finish listening. The characters were not accessible, in particular, the main lead was narcisstic, not likeable and engineered little sympathy. About halfway through, I realized that I had little interest in finding how the book ended. Not recommended.

VERY overrated - not good.

i got this as it had such rave reviews (at the top of the review list...not so, if you scroll further) As the other people who gave 1,2, or 3 stars noted - it is pretty badly written. Begins OK but then is obvious and descends quickly into utter nonsense I admit i finished it because i wanted to be sure who the culprit was - but i resented every 10 minutes more that i listened and was glad when it ended. The writing was about equal to that of a 15 years old - totally silly fight scene with 9 month pregnant woman - and then ridiculous narration by a boy who had been captive since he was 6 using a fully adult vocabulary. In spite of it being a pretty silly book it has left a sort of 'bad taste' ...an unpleasant book.

Absurd!

What a complete waste of time! I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but the “mystery” is both obvious and implausible. I would ask for a refund if I’d paid for it!

Good in-between-books book

I had no idea what to listen to next and chose this one based on star ratings and amount of reviewers. It was a good book to fill the space with after a string of comedies I had listened to.

Very early on in this book, in the first few chapters, I suspected something about a character and I was half right. There is also a twist of sorts that I didn't guess at all. It wasn't gripping exactly, but I did want to know whodunit. If you're into these types of stories - "psychological thrillers" - then it will at least have you wanting to know what happens next.

The narrator did a really great job emoting for each character and making you really feel the frustrations of the characters. Though I believe the volume/mix could have been better uniformed so that when she yelled it wasn't so loud that I had to turn it down and when she whispered it wasn't so quiet I had to turn it up.

My only real critiques of this book are that there is a character in the end that (I think) deserved WAY worse and it was frustrating to not see better justice done, and the story itself could have been a tad stronger. Wish I understood what is making me feel that way but I'm not sure, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. But like I said, the author did have me wanting to know how it ended and I did look forward to driving so I could finish it.

Disappointing

I had high hopes for this as Amazon has "bigged it up" so much, but I found the pathetic heroine very annoying and her overly dragged out performance was irritating- how long can a voice tremble before it ceases to be of any impact!
The climax was ridiculous and very unbelievable for a woman in labour- can't say anymore without a spoiler alert.
A real shame and a waste of a credit.

Silent Child Screams for Attention!

Calling anything a thriller of the year is always a bold claim, especially when there are releases fairly close in the genre from authors like Rachel Abbott and Paula Hawkins as well as a plethora of others.  But that's what Audible have done with this book by an author relatively unknown to their listeners.  Does it match up to that claim?

First off I have to say that I definitely enjoyed reading it. The tight, clean writing style suggests to me a confident author working in sync with a good editor.  Denzil takes a very human approach to her characters and builds them from a combination of strengths and frailties which mostly rang very true to me.  She gradually builds the mystery in a plot where, in truth, I think some people will feel that not a lot happens during the middle of the book.  For me, the start was excellent, the middle a quite subtle development of the story and characters before the book quite literally explodes towards the end with a conclusion of some considerable drama.

Most importantly to me the central character, Emma, came across very strongly.  She is put through hell in all kinds of ways, both subtle and monstrous but remains thoroughly believable except at one point towards the end which does involve giving the author the benefit of a touch of artistic license near the end.  

Jaonne Froggatt is also new to me, her narration is excellent.  It's a real performance and while it might sound a strange thing to complement her and the production team on they know the value of a little moment of silence.  All too often even the best narrators give a great OMG moment only for the narrative to carry on with the next chapter immediately meaning the listener either doesn't get to savour that great moment or misses what comes next.  Here, there were a couple of great uses of a little silence which was a great extra to add to a fine performance. 

So, in summary this is a fine thriller, well written and performed.  Is it genuinely the Thriller of the Year?  I'm not quite sure I'd go that far but I think it will be on a lot of readers' shortlists.

Predictable

Story okay though I had guessed whodunit relatively early, although not entirely correct. I found that the main character started irritating me about halfway through and I started hoping she'd accidentally fall down a flight of steep stairs whilst holding a pair of scissors and chewing on a chunk of beef.
Joanne Froggatt does a great job and I take my hat off to her for injecting some life into an otherwise two-dimensional character.

Badly written predictable fluff.

Before the end of the first chapter l was bored. So badly written, it read like an overly long English Exam essay. Self indulgent to the point of narcissistic. If any research was done certainly none of it was used. Please do not waste your valuable time. l can only recommend this as a Christmas gift for someone you really dislike.

Appalling. Don't waste 9.5 hrs of your life...

This was at its best points mediocre and the majority of the time, poorly written, full of cliches similes and metaphors, implausible in every way and not remotely interesting. Characters are 2D and that's being generous. Pace is slow and NOTHING happens. The big reveal is obvious and uninteresting. The 'twist' is non-existent. Narrator does her best but you can't polish a t*rd. seriously, don't waste your time. Read Mark Billingham, Ben Aaronovitch, Clare Mackintosh or even Robert Galbraith instead. At the very least, the quality of writing in those books is strong. This is shoddy and it genuinely disturbs me to think so many people have bought in to Amazon's / Audible's hype around a dreadful, poorly written story that lacks any originality and skill whatsoever. Save your money and 9.5 hours of your life. Trust me.

How this is Audibles thriller of the year I will never know!

I found this book so tedious I actually had to give up on it which is something I hate to do. I got 2/3s in before throwing in the towel because the whole book is the main character moaning and repeating herself endlessly. If you want a book that is exciting with twists and turns, a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat, a book you can't put down...look elsewhere.

Couldn't put it down

Couldn't put it down. Enthralling story made better by Joanne Froggets mellow, soothing, addictive voice. I shall be downloading more by this author. Excellent

Caught me off guard

I thought this was going to be another over hyped best seller that didn't stack up...... but boy was I surprised. I was gripped from the outside, by the storyline and the exceptional narration. I didn't see the twists until they hit me in the face. Clever, clever, clever and did I mention the unbelievably fantastic narration. Just wow!

narrator too whispery

I cannot easily listen to this narrator. she drops her voice too often and I was constantly turning the volume up and down. very disappointing :( did not get past chapter two. book refunded

Loved this book

Well written and keeps your attention all the way to the end, would definitely recommend.