I absolutely adored The Silent Treatment, the stunning debut novel from Abbie Greaves. Written with such beauty and poignancy, this book can be classed as an emotional family drama. However at its core, The Silent Treatment is a love story. For me it is the portrayal of this beautiful love story that elevates this book to my top rating of five stars as it told with such depth and emotional intelligence.
I need to reiterate – this novel is stunning! So much so, I read it over Christmas and my family nearly didn’t get their Christmas dinner simply because I couldn’t put this book down! And believe me, nothing usually comes between me and my Christmas turkey and roast potatoes!
You may actually recall that The Silent Treatment was included my Cracking Books to Read in 2020 that I posted at the beginning of the year.
Abbie Greaves was inspired to write The Silent Treatment after reading a newspaper article about a Japanese man who hadn’t spoken to his wife for years. She couldn’t get this out of her head and knew that she ‘wanted to write about silence eating away at a relationship.’ What a fantastic concept for a plot – let’s face it, we’ve all experienced the silent treatment at one time or other, and I’m sure some of us are also guilty of giving the silent treatment at times to those we love.
And so Abbie developed the story of Frank and Maggie. Married for 40 years, as we discover all about their life together it is clear that these characters deeply love each other. In my view, the love story is a real page turner. And so through Abbie’s compassionate narrative, we explore why Frank has not spoken to his wife for the past six months. And what is the impact of Frank’s prolonged silence on Maggie.
Mainly told from Frank’s point of view, the narrative warmed my heart and broke it in equal measures. The power of this book is that it is subtle yet thought provoking.
Very recently released (it was published on 2nd April 2020) I urge you all to read The Silent Treatment as is so moving and unique. Frank and Maggie really captured my heart; especially Frank. I absolutely adore the character of Frank!
A massive thank you to Georgina Moore for my advance copy of The Silent Treatment. Also thank you to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of the blog tour to help publicise this beautiful book.
To follow the blog tour in full, please see below.
My rating:
Thank you so much for this amazing blog tour support Kirsty xx
Great review, I’ve read a lot of really positive things about this book.