The Whispers
A Novel
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4.2 • 117 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Expertly, subtly and powerfully rendered. . . . [The Whispers] delivers a sucker-punch ending you’ll have to read twice to believe.”—The New York Times Book Review
“[An] electrifying . . . razor-sharp page-turner.” —Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After
On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a barbecue as the summer winds down. Everything is fabulous until Whitney, 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 his life hangs in the balance.
Over the course of a tense three days, the women of the neighborhood grapple with what led to that terrible night. People-pleasing Blair, Whitney’s best friend, suspects something isn’t as it seems. Rebecca, the ER doctor who helps treat Whitney’s son, has struggled to have a child of her own. And the all-knowing Mara, the older woman next door, watches everyone’s world unravel from her front porch.
Exploring envy, women’s friendships, desire, and the intuitions that we silence, The Whispers is a chilling novel that marks Ashley Audrain as a major fiction talent.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this gripping psychological thriller, a young boy is in a coma after falling out his bedroom window—and those around him struggle to understand what happened. Rumours abound, but four women each hold a piece of the puzzle: Whitney, the boy’s go-getter mother; Rebecca, a tragically childless doctor; Blair, an underappreciated stay-at-home mom; and Mara, the retired mother of a neurodiverse son. Each of Ashley Audrain’s fascinating characters is hiding jaw-dropping secrets, and we tore through every messy detail and bad choice. Audrain has a keen insight into the demands, double standards, and expectations that make motherhood so complex, making The Whispers a twisty and thought-provoking read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Audrain (The Push) takes a deep dive into the secret lives of women in this standout work of literary suspense. Everything will change for four families in an upscale neighborhood after 10-year-old Xavier Loverly falls from his bedroom window and ends up in the hospital in critical condition. The ER physician handling his case is neighbor Rebecca Parry, who runs interference between police and Xavier's overwhelmed mother, Whitney, whose seeming ability to juggle a corporate consulting firm, a husband, and three kids has made her the envy of the neighborhood. As Whitney maintains a vigil at her son's bedside, whispers swell about what might have led to Xavier's fall, and the truth emerges twist by twist from a quartet of narrators. In addition to Whitney and Rebecca, whose professionalism masks private sorrows, Audrain takes readers inside the minds of Whitney's best friend, Blair Parks, a stay-at-home mom who suspects her husband is straying, and octogenarian Mara Alvaro, a relic from pre-gentrification days when the neighborhood was full of Portuguese immigrants. The novel soars via Audrain's clever revelations of the ways her protagonists' lives are linked in ways they never suspected. Both artful and pulse pounding, this isn't easily shaken.
Customer Reviews
Such a great read!
Loved every twist and turn of this book. Fabulous ending.