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Title details for When We Were Silent by Fiona McPhillips - Available

When We Were Silent

A Novel

by Fiona McPhillips
India Mullen
Audiobook
5 of 7 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
5 of 7 copies available

This program is read by actor India Mullen, who plays Peggy in the Normal People miniseries.
"With her full-bodied voice and unhurried pace, [India] Mullen conveys an unsettled atmosphere and the intricate dynamics between all the players—villains and victims."—BookPage

An outsider threatens to expose the secrets at an elite private school in this suspenseful debut novel for readers of My Dark Vanessa and Dare Me
Louise Manson is the newest student at Highfield Manor, Dublin's most exclusive private school. It seems nearly perfect: the high arched window alcoves and tall granite pillars, the overspill of lilac at the front gate and the immaculate playing fields, the giggling students, the dusty, oak-lined library, and the dark, festering secret she has come to expose.
At first, Lou's working-class status makes her the consummate outsider, though all that changes when she is befriended by the beautiful and wealthy Shauna Power. But Lou finds out that even Shauna is caught up in Highfield's web, and her time there ends with a lifeless body sprawled at her feet.
Thirty years later, Lou has rebuilt her life after the harrowing events of the so-called "Highfield Affair," when she gets a shocking phone call. Ronan Power, Shauna's brother, is a high-profile lawyer bringing a lawsuit against the school. And he needs Lou to testify.
Now with a daughter and career to protect, the last thing Lou wants is for Highfield Manor to be back in her life. But to finally free herself and others, she has to confront her past, go to battle once more, and discover, for once and for all, what really happened at Highfield. Powerful and compelling, When We Were Silent is an unputdownable, thrilling story of exploitation, privilege, and retribution.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 21, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250332097
      • File size: 301868 KB
      • Duration: 10:28:53

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 18, 2024
      A Dublin Catholic school’s culture of silence proves deadly in Irish journalist McPhillips’s searing debut novel. In 1986, 17-year-old Louise Manson enrolls at the prestigious Highfield Manor to avenge her best friend Tina, who got pregnant and killed herself after being repeatedly raped by Maurice McQueen, the school’s gym teacher and swim coach. McQueen promptly molests Lou, but when she reports him to school authorities, nobody believes her. Desperate and furious, Lou hatches a plan to publicly expose McQueen that ends in someone’s death. Thirty-plus years later, Lou—now a married professor with a teenage daughter—has worked hard to move past “the Highfield Affair.” When an attorney asks her to testify on behalf of a 14-year-old suing Highfield for the “systemic cover-up of abuse in the school and the swimming club over decades,” she reluctantly agrees. Then someone tries to extort her into staying silent, prompting Lou to again take matters into her own hands, with shattering results. McPhillips deftly alternates between past and present, maximizing suspense by playing multiple mysteries in each timeline off one another. With the added urgency of Lou’s first-person-present narration, the author wrings her powerful plot for maximum impact. This is a triumph.

    • Library Journal

      September 13, 2024

      Louise is one of the few scholarship students in the late 1980s at Highfield Manor, a distinguished private Dublin school. When her best friend dies by suicide, she is determined to expose her friend's abuser, a teacher and coach at the school. Debut author McPhillips alternates between the point of view of teenage Lou and the present time when she's happily married and has a teenage daughter. Lou has tried to put the trauma from Highfield behind her, but a school friend's brother needs her to testify in court about Highfield's history of hiding abuse. Now Lou must confront her past to discover if her years of punishment were justified for what really happened on her last day at Highfield. In her audiobook debut, narrator India Mullen portrays young Lou with the appropriate level of teenage angst, while adult Lou's tone is more reflective and mature. Her Dublin lilt can be soothing, but it takes on an unsettling edge during the suspenseful moments. VERDICT The audiobook, while filled with upsetting moments of grooming and abuse, will cause listeners to speed to the end to find out if Lou receives justice. Recommend to readers of noir mysteries and psychological suspense.--Sarah Hill

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.