The Quiet Ones

'Intoxicating and propulsive, THE QUIET ONES perfectly captures the darkness and delight of adolescence. A beautiful, brutal thriller' Emilia Hart

You've always got to watch the quiet ones…

Eve has a secret.

Since she was very young, she has found peace in the quiet fragility of the bones of animals. The stillness of their bodies is a relief from a busy, loud world that often threatens to overwhelm her. The only person who knows about this slightly odd obsession is Eve’s best friend, Caitlin; her one constant companion in the remote Cornish village where they have grown up.

Until on the first day of secondary school, in blasts new girl Amber: a vivacious, charismatic whirlwind who immediately infiltrates their sacred two. Eve can’t believe how lucky she is to belong to such a trio.

Then the little boy disappears.

Suddenly Eve has much bigger secrets to keep: and as every teenage girl knows, the only thing worse than keeping a terrible secret is not being part of it at all. But as Eve tries to keep her silence, she learns a devastating lesson: not all bodies are quiet.

Reviews

'Intoxicating and propulsive, THE QUIET ONES perfectly captures the darkness and delight of adolescence. A beautiful, brutal thriller: I loved it' Emilia Hart, author of WEYWARD

‘Set in the quiet menace of a rural town and its whispering school corridors, rumours billow and certainties fade… Unsettling and otherworldly, this novel draws you in to the wild joy of youth and sorority, and the inevitable collapse into distrust and danger. Beautifully and precisely written, these characters have lingered in my thoughts, almost against my will. As gleaming and unsettling and finely-wrought as a magpie’s skull’ Emma van Straaten

About the author

Tara O’Sullivan grew up in Cornwall and now lives in south London. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter and an early partial of THE QUIET ONES was longlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize Discoveries Award. When she isn’t working on her own writing, Tara works as a ghostwriter and edits other people’s books as a freelance editor and proofreader.