After the Silence: a twisty page-turner of deadly secrets and an unsolved murder investigation

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While her friends and family initially see Keelin’s new marriage as positive and safe, Keelin eventually finds herself isolated from close friends and the victim of coercive control and gaslighting. I think O'Neill has developed a fascinating psychology in Keelin and told an important story about domestic violence while also weaving in a genuinely intriguing mystery.

The murder is unsolved, and the islanders presume either Henry or Keelin responsible, although nothing has ever been proven. The night of Nessa’s murder is depicted well, it’s almost Bacchanalian with a wild storm adding to the mood of the evening. Despite the initial confusion, I did really enjoy that there was multiple time frames, as it gave us more of an insight in to the initial events that led to where the story is now, and each time it seemed to unearth more interesting secrets that were being covered up. Imagine Emily Bronte crossed with a Netflix true-crime documentary and with a dash of Big Little Lies thrown in.With shelters refusing to take in a deaf person, Pam bends the rules and brings Laura to her home, teaching her how to communicate and uncovering her true personality. We mainly follow Keelin Kinsella, who on the surface has it all – she’s wealthy, has the perfect husband and two beautiful children. Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsellas' carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa. It was their house where the murder took place; their loud, drug and alcohol fuelled party that silenced Nessa’s last breath.

The resentment of the islanders towards the wealthy Kinsella family comes across loud and clear with plenty of tension, suspicion and mistrust. While there is so much good stuff in this book, it does take some patience especially at the start where various timelines and PoVs are flung at us in rather confusing fashion so do bear that in mind. This is a tightly written, gripping and cleverly done family drama that looks closely at coercive control, domestic violence and the secrets that we keep, both from ourselves and from each other.Either there was the constant use of the native tongue or Keelin drifting off into fairyland, as she so often did.

Unafraid to depict the exhausting reality of caring, her timely story is compassionate and humane, judiciously blending the personal with the political; as she eloquently argues, “care is a feminist issue”. I read this accidentally in tandem with Lucy Foley’s The Guest List - both remote-island-based whodunnits, but they do have their differences.I struggled with this at times, and I have never had a romantic relationship, let alone a toxic or abusive one—I can only imagine how triggering this book would be for some people who have, and you should really, really think hard about whether you want to expose yourself to that before you read this. Using wide-ranging sources from literature, mythology, psychology and feminist theory, she exposes the complicated damage and response caused by rape. The story challenges the stereotype that there is one type of victim in abusive relationships, as Keelin is a resilient and impressive woman who has trained as a counselor.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. When the aliens announce their presence from a point on the far fringe of the solar system, they say they want to be friends with Earth’s people. This book is so beautifully written with a story that is totally engrossing and keeps you guessing until the end. This works well as a narrative device, as their interviewees give us some important background on the key characters, and offer different versions of the events in question. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH).In fact, it doesn’t come as a surprise at all if you’ve been paying attention, but that doesn’t stop After the Silence from drawing you in. You’re well aware there’s more to her than meets the eye, and it was great fun trying to guess her next moves. As a character in the book says so aptly, 'Don't you think it's interesting that we always ask "Why do these women stay? They have a daughter together and live comfortably well-off on the fictional, windswept island of Inisrun, off the Irish coast. Evie always waited until Henry was in the room before she began the lecture on how her mother was destroying planet earth, and though her eyes never left Keelin’s, it was clear for whom the performance was really intended.