Full confession: I’m an Ashley Audrain super fan. When ‘The Push’ was released, I told every friend, co-worker and family member to read it. I also bought a signed copy for my bookshelf. So when ‘The Whispers’ was announced, it went to the top of my most anticipated books of the year. And I’m happy to report that this book lived up to all my expectations.
Another exploration of the unhappier sides of motherhood and also marriage, the story also examines female friendships, jealousy, envy, and the small lies women tell themselves just to get by.
“𝘕𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘸𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴.”
And the secrets! Each of the four women of Harlow Street – along with their husbands – are harboring huge secrets. What begins as whispers about a terrible scene between Whitney and her son Xavier at a backyard barbecue spins into something more sinister as the neighbors try to understand what happens later to Xavier.
Ashley Audrain doesn’t shy away from the truths of the women’s private lives and the sometimes overwhelming burdens of family. Certainly some of the women are very unsympathetic characters but the author slowly builds the suspense and the dread to an ending that blew me away.
This is a sometimes uncomfortable book but it is so compelling that I found myself listening to the audiobook every chance I got. All my assumptions about the characters were turned upside down by the end. And the final words of the book! Highly recommend!
About the Book:
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Push, a propulsive page-turner about four families whose lives are changed when the unthinkable happens—and what is lost when we give in to our own worst impulses.
On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a catered barbecue as the summer winds down; drinks continue late into the night.
Everything is fabulous until the picture-perfect hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack—loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then, his mother can only sit by her son’s hospital bed, where she refuses to speak to anyone, and his life hangs in the balance.
What happens next, over the course of a tense three days, as each of these women grapple with what led to that terrible night?
Exploring envy, women’s friendships, desire, and the intuitions that we silence, The Whispers is a chilling novel that marks Audrain as a major women’s fiction talent.