Engaging, entertaining, and expertly narrated. A recommended purchase for collections where suspense is popular.

I never expected an audiobook to be so intense that it would leave me thinking about it long after it ended, but this one did. It weaves together two seemingly separate stories, each one gripping in its own way, and as they converge toward the end, the payoff is incredibly satisfying. I’ve always been fascinated by psychoanalysis, and the way the psychoanalyst’s character is written brought an extra layer of intrigue to the plot.

At times, the story felt almost chaotic, but there was something about that craziness that made me love it even more. The exploration of the human mind, the unexpected connections between the characters, and the sheer unpredictability of it all made for a truly captivating experience. It’s the kind of story that sticks with you – one that I found myself enjoying more and more as it went along.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
This audiobook was only so-s0 in my opinion. I liked the beginning but I found myself getting bored about a quarter or halfway through this book. I did enjoy the narrator though.

Many thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

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This book was good - enticing and well written, if not a little confusing at times. I did struggle to keep all the different strings sorted and not get them confused, but in the end, that’s how it was anyway. Everything interconnected. What a harrowing story.

I had a lot of problems with this book, and the meandering plot was chief among them. It moved along so slowly, and it took detours that were unnecessary, which felt like driving to work behind a retired tourist with all the time in the world, stopping and slowing to look at every irrelevant thing.

Next, it was implausible. The story had potential, but Arles was broken and toxic and thoroughly ill-equipped to handle the enormous undertaking of single-handedly opening, running, and treating patients in a residential home. She herself has PTSD, largely untreated, and she blacks out, putting herself and others in danger.

It seemed to me the author either did a ton of research on PTSD, or she herself has experience, and that knowledge came across clearly. There were a lot of damage people in this book, some of whom got darker and scarier the more you knew about them. However, it also read like it was too much emotional stunting and suffering concentrated in these gathered characters.

The ending was sloppily pieced together and wholly untenable.

Overall, this book needed editing and guidance in taking the ideas in the author's mind and making them into a credible story. Too many things missed the mark.

This is a complex, nuanced story about abuse, survival, and generational trauma, all beautifully done.

A couple are distraught when their young daughter Bea is snatched under mysterious circumstances. 


A psychologist with a dark history of her own uses a connection she doesn't entirely understand to insert herself into the lives of a devoted mother and her difficult son, who has an undignosed disability.


The stories of women, and men, and children are skilfully interwoven here and this book was just brilliant. I cannot recommend it too highly, and look forward to other books by the same author.

This is a tough one because I really like the author’s actual writing and the audiobook narration but good lord this was convoluted. The ending made the journey somewhat worth it - but this book felt so intent on exploring every single character’s inner traumas that it felt disjointed at times. I get that we’re getting 3 distinctly separate POVs, but it’s just too much.

Some things of note - as much as I get why Arles showing her distaste for romance/men is important to her character, her little fling added nothing to this story. The idea that a mental health professional would hire a random woman squatting in her basement to teach children in a residential facility based off one conversation about homeschooling is WILD.

Overall, this book is fine if you don’t think about it too much because the ending does wrap up fairly nicely. But the journey to get there was not for me.

The Usual Silence is a slow burn mystery about a child psychologist, a father with a missing daughter, and a mother with a nonverbal son with autism. Their stories are very disparate, but they come together. The psychologist, Arles, suffers from dissociation from unresolved childhood trauma. The story takes a little time to get going. There is a lot going on in the story and we’re slowly fed more details to understand the larger picture of what is happening.

Each character is depicted vividly, and I had a great sense of each person and their relationships with others. The audiobook was well narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen. I really enjoyed her performance, especially of other characters.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ebook and audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Meet Arles, a a psychologist that specializes in the mental health care of children. When she is blindsidedly terminated by her employer, she decides to open an residential treatment facility that encourages total family therapy. This book has multiple storylines thst buildt up to the climax. The story is a slowburn the first half, the second half is pretty fast paced. This book reminds me of the large ensemble movies that come together in the end.

4 stars

A great interconnected thriller. How do all these people connect? You’ll find out.
Very interesting take on therapy and mental illness