The Silence Factory
A Novel
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
"A delicately woven novel with an utterly original premise, it ensnared me from the very first page.” — Emilia Hart, bestselling author of Weyward
From the acclaimed author of the #1 international bestseller The Binding—a captivating story of gothic suspense about a powerful family, the magical and dangerous silk their fortune is built upon, and the exploitative history they are desperately trying to hide.
1820: Sophia Ashmore-Percy reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island, where he searches for rare biological specimens. Once there, however, she sets on her own voyage of discovery—stumbling across the very creature he is looking for, making an unexpected connection with a local woman, and ultimately reconsidering her marriage, life, and own desires.
Decades later, audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness. But Henry, eager to escape a troubled past, quickly becomes obsessed with the fascinating nature of Sir Edward’s business: spinning silk with a rare and magical breed of spiders. The extraordinary silk shields sound, offering respite from bustling streets and noisy neighbors. The result is instant tranquility, as wearers experience a soothing calmness. Yet, those within earshot of the outward-facing silk are subjected to eerie murmurs that amplify with proximity. Bystanders suffer the consequences of this unnerving phenomenon, manifesting in physical and mental afflictions ranging from headaches and drowsiness to severe cases of madness.
As Henry becomes entangled in the allure of the silk and Sir Edward’s charm, he glimpses a more sinister family history. The closer he ventures into the inner circle of Carthmute House, the more he unravels the horrifying underbelly of the silk business.
With Bridget Collins’s signature, stunning prose, The Silence Factory is an equally enthralling and unsettling gothic story about complicity, desire, and corruption—a novel to lose yourself in.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Collins (The Betrayals) suffuses this skillful tale of industry's conveniences and curses in mid-19th-century England with fantastical elements. At the story's center is a magical fabric spun from spider silk that, when worn around one's head or draped over a stagecoach, suppresses the increasingly nettlesome cacophony of everyday life. Colllins gradually reveals the story of the fabric, beginning with widower Henry Latimer, who's working as a hearing-aid salesman when he's dispatched to the home of Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy, who's seeking to ameliorate his daughter's congenital deafness. There, Henry learns Sir Edward's fortune is tied up in the silk's manufacture. Enjoined by Sir Edward to help him promote the silk's commercial value, Henry becomes its avid salesman—even though he sees the tragic toll its production takes on the factory workers, many of them young children who are being deafened by the noise deflected by the fabric. By the novel's end, the silk produces even greater dangers. Though Collins answers the provocative questions she raises about the relationship between industry and nature with a too-convenient deus ex machina, she brings a Dickensian richness to her depiction of the grim factory conditions. Thanks to its clever speculative twist, this stands out from the pack of Victorian historicals.
