By: Ashley Audrain
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-9848-8169-4
Reviewed by Diane Lunsford
Ashley Audrain has planted a wonderfully suspenseful garden chock full of secrets and intrigue in her latest novel, The Whispers.
All is not what it appears to be on Harlow Street. The neighborhood is upscale, and its residents are exemplary when it comes to flaunting over-the-top fabulousness. Whitney Loverly is married to Jacob, and they have three children. Xavier is ten and he has three-year-old twin siblings (one boy; one girl). If it weren’t for Xavier, the Loverly family would be the epitome of perfection. Whitney is a workaholic. She is a successful executive and if she had her druthers, she would be working versus hosting the ad nauseum end-of-summer barbeque at their home—the most expensive home on the street. Everything is going swimmingly well. "...They are there for a neighborly family afternoon, for the children, who play a parallel kind of game, but the men have chosen nice shoes, and the women wear accessories that don’t make it to the playground, and the tone of everyone’s voice is polished..." And then, the ‘storm’ ruins everything...
Whitney does a panoramic scan of her guests. All the neighborhood wives and their husbands are here. There’s Blair who is married to Aiden. She is a stay-at-home mom and completely obsessed with Whitney’s life. Eventually, Blair will learn that her blissful marriage to Aiden isn’t quite so pure. Mara and Albert are the ‘originals’ on the block. They have lived in the house on Harlow Street for an eternity. They are never invited to these random gatherings, but rest assured, Mara misses nothing of the goings on. Rebecca is a successful doctor married to Ben. The one thing she covets more in life than a successful practice is to experience childbirth and becoming a mother. There is quite the tangled web that has been woven on this pristine street among these cast of characters. When tragedy strikes the Loverly homestead, many of the deep (and somewhat dark) secrets have no other course than to rise to the surface and change the lives of every resident on Harlow Street forever more.
Ashley Audrain is on fire in this fast-paced and quite riveting novel. She has done a superb job of defining her interactive storytelling leaving it up to the reader to determine who to like and who to dislike. There were times when I felt as though I were vicariously experiencing a written version of a Real Housewives series it was so juicy. Whitney Loverly’s main character is beautifully layered. Foundationally, she is the unfeeling woman executive who has found her seat at the head of the table in the ‘corporate world,’ yet when tragedy hits too close to home, there are intermittent occasions where she possibly does have a thought that navigates beyond her self-professed greatness. I also enjoyed the periodic injections of Mara’s character at the most opportune moments. Mara is the original resident to the block and virtually invisible to her neighbors. Yet, Mara is tough as nails and doesn’t care. "...It’s amazing what you can learn about people when you’re more or less invisible. It’s the things they don’t want you to see that tell you the most..." There is no drag to the cadence of this read. Simply put, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the most entertaining ride of your life! Well done Ms. Audrain!
Quill says: The Whispers is a great opportunity to let your imagination run wild and perhaps question what really goes on in your neighborhood behind closed doors.
The Spectacular Life of Benito Martin del Canto
Drink Wine and Be Beautiful: Short Stories
Godsmack Part I: The Mother Earth
In The Shadow of The Apennines
Praesidium (Shadows in the Wind, Book 1)
Ninety Days In The 90s: A Rock 'N' Roll Time Travel Story
Season of My Enemy (Heroines of WWII)
No Pistol Tastes the Same (PTSD Disaster Book 1)
The Prisoner and The Executioner
Grandma Lou's Wonderfully Weird Christmas Dinner: A Christmas Tale for the Entire Family
Brandy: Ballad of a Pirate Princess
A Most Clever Girl: A Novel of an American Spy
Aria's Bayou Child: A Thriller
Rusty Kenneficke's 3rd Quarter (Rusty Kenneficke Trilogy)
The Mockingbird's Song (Amish Greenhouse Mysteries, Book 2)
When I Meet You (Tree of Life Series, Book 3)
Life in the Chastity Zone (Chastity Series, Book 1)
The Further Life of Rusty Kenneficke (The Rusty Kenneficke Trilogy Book 2)
Once Upon a Dickens Christmas: 3 Charming Christmas Tales Set in Victorian England
The Ropes That Bind: Based on a True Story of Child Sexual Abuse
Flirtation on the Hudson (Journey of Cornelia Rose)
The Forgiving Jar (The Prayer Jars)
The Inn at Hidden Run (Tree of Life Series)
The Cuckoo Colloquium: Getting Lost to Find Yourself
The White City: True Colors - Historical Stories of American Crime
The Misadventures of Rusty Kenneficke
Material Things: The Untold Story of a Young Entrepreneur Who Made a Killing in the Jeans Business
Angels on Overtime: A Divine Romantic Comedy
Seeking Glory: A Novel about Relationships, Loss, and Finding Your Way Home
The Benghazi Affair (Stone Waverly Trilogy)
Chanting the Feminine Down: A Psychological, Religious, and Historical Novel
Casanova Cowboy: Where the Old West Lives on in the Rusty Springs Valley
Whisper In My Ear (Vol III of III)
Whisper In My Ear (Vol II of III)
The Love Fool: A Rome-antic Comedy
Whisper In My Ear (Vol I of III)
Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing
One Good Thing: A Ten Beach Road Novel
The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher
A Lady’s Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless)
The Angels’ Share (The Bourbon Kings)
Sunshine Beach: A Ten Beach Road Novel
From Bags to Riches: A Jessie Stanton Novel
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
A Pink Suitcase: 22 Tales of Women’s Travel
The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach
The Gates of Rutherford: A Novel of Rutherford Park
Death of a Diva: From Berlin to Broadway
Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin’ Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South)
Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits (Jane Austen Takes the South)
The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky
The Wild Dark Flowers: A Novel of Rutherford Park
A Farm Dies Once a Year: A Memoir
Jane Austen’s Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman
Epic Sloth: Tales of the Long Crawl
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel
Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Between A Mother and Her Child
Courage: A Story of Love and Friendship
The Pipers and the First Phase (Volume 1)
Indivisible? The Story of the Second American Civil War
Down & Out in Bugtussle: The Mad Fat Road to Happiness
Lioslaith: Last of the Painted Ones
Star Trek The Next Generation: On Board the U.S.S. Enterprise
Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale
Pride & Prejudice With a Side of Grits
Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small
Disclosure in Accordance with FTC Guidelines 16 CFR Part 255
Copyrights © 2023 Feathered Quill Reviews All Rights Reserved. | Designed & Developed by Unglitch.io