Susan Allott's Blog
April 30, 2024
US publication day for The House On Rye Lane!
The House On Rye Lane publishes in north America and Canada today, 30th April 2024!
You can get it in hardback, audiobook and e-book, with the paperback to follow next year.
The House on Rye Lane
Here are some of the reviews from the UK:
'Terrific' SUNDAY TIMES crime pick of the month
'A sinister tale, beautifully told' THE SUN
'A terrific spine chiller’ TELEGRAPH
‘Sublime, elegant and exciting… beautifully written and entirely gripping. I’m a big fan of Susan Allott’ CHRIS WHITAKER
‘The lovechild of Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests and Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs… confirms Susan Allott as a huge talent’ ERIN KELLY
‘A brilliant, dark, intricate story with a huge sting in the tale. I absolutely loved it' JENNIE GODFREY
‘Had me captivated from beginning to end. A haunting thriller that flawlessly weaves the past with the present. Tense, engrossing and unputdownable’ LOUISE HARE
‘What a read! Twisty, turny, beautifully written, just brilliant’ FRANCES QUINN
‘A highly accomplished literary thriller… Allott is establishing herself as one of the most talented new writers around’ TREVOR WOOD
‘A wonderfully atmospheric, darkly brooding novel which had me transfixed from the first page to the last… a novel to lose yourself in, to savour, and one which will linger, disturbing and magnificent in equal measure, long after it is finished.’ LOUISE FEIN
‘Spooky, gothic splendour – this book will creep under your skin and keep you enthralled to the very last page… Stunning prose, drenched in atmosphere… the best book I’ve read in ages’ ELENI KYRIACOU
You can get it in hardback, audiobook and e-book, with the paperback to follow next year.
The House on Rye Lane
Here are some of the reviews from the UK:
'Terrific' SUNDAY TIMES crime pick of the month
'A sinister tale, beautifully told' THE SUN
'A terrific spine chiller’ TELEGRAPH
‘Sublime, elegant and exciting… beautifully written and entirely gripping. I’m a big fan of Susan Allott’ CHRIS WHITAKER
‘The lovechild of Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests and Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs… confirms Susan Allott as a huge talent’ ERIN KELLY
‘A brilliant, dark, intricate story with a huge sting in the tale. I absolutely loved it' JENNIE GODFREY
‘Had me captivated from beginning to end. A haunting thriller that flawlessly weaves the past with the present. Tense, engrossing and unputdownable’ LOUISE HARE
‘What a read! Twisty, turny, beautifully written, just brilliant’ FRANCES QUINN
‘A highly accomplished literary thriller… Allott is establishing herself as one of the most talented new writers around’ TREVOR WOOD
‘A wonderfully atmospheric, darkly brooding novel which had me transfixed from the first page to the last… a novel to lose yourself in, to savour, and one which will linger, disturbing and magnificent in equal measure, long after it is finished.’ LOUISE FEIN
‘Spooky, gothic splendour – this book will creep under your skin and keep you enthralled to the very last page… Stunning prose, drenched in atmosphere… the best book I’ve read in ages’ ELENI KYRIACOU
October 9, 2023
The House on Rye Lane is available to pre-order
My new literary thriller - The House on Rye Lane - is out in January 2024 (UK) and March 2024 (US) with Harper Collins.
I'm so happy to say that it's now available to pre-order!
Some early reviews to whet your appetite:
‘Sublime, elegant and exciting. The House on Rye Lane is beautifully written and entirely gripping. I’m a big fan of Susan Allott’ CHRIS WHITAKER
‘The lovechild of Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests and Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs… confirms Susan Allott as a huge talent’ ERIN KELLY
‘A haunting thriller that flawlessly weaves the past with the present. Tense, engrossing and unputdownable’ LOUISE HARE
‘A House of Usher for the 21st Century: unnerving, unsettling and increasingly hard to put down’ PHILIP GRAY
‘A very fine writer with a fierce intelligence. The House on Rye Lane had me terrified’ LEONORA NATTRESS
I'm so happy to say that it's now available to pre-order!
Some early reviews to whet your appetite:
‘Sublime, elegant and exciting. The House on Rye Lane is beautifully written and entirely gripping. I’m a big fan of Susan Allott’ CHRIS WHITAKER
‘The lovechild of Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests and Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs… confirms Susan Allott as a huge talent’ ERIN KELLY
‘A haunting thriller that flawlessly weaves the past with the present. Tense, engrossing and unputdownable’ LOUISE HARE
‘A House of Usher for the 21st Century: unnerving, unsettling and increasingly hard to put down’ PHILIP GRAY
‘A very fine writer with a fierce intelligence. The House on Rye Lane had me terrified’ LEONORA NATTRESS
July 27, 2021
Paperback out now in the US & Canada!
The Silence is published in paperback today in the US and Canada! Available in all good bookstores and online. It has the most beautiful, filmic cover - a new look for the paperback edition - and some extra content at the back that wasn't in the hardback, so it's perfect for your book club.
Published by Custom House books, an imprint of William Morrow / Harper Collins, I'm very proud of this book and hope you will love it too!
https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Novel-...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...The SilenceThe Silence
Published by Custom House books, an imprint of William Morrow / Harper Collins, I'm very proud of this book and hope you will love it too!
https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Novel-...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...The SilenceThe Silence
April 17, 2021
CWA Daggers Longlist for The Silence
The Crime Writers Association New Blood Daggers longlist was announced on 15th April 2021 and I was over the moon that The Silence was included!
The CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the crime genre and are considered synonymous with quality crime writing. The CWA Press release said: ‘The much-anticipated John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger highlights the best debut novels. Among the rising stars of 2021 is Susan Allott with her Australian-set debut The Silence, praised by the Wall Street Journal as ‘emotionally wrenching.’ The full press release is here:
https://thecwa.co.uk/news/cwa-dagger-...
The CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the crime genre and are considered synonymous with quality crime writing. The CWA Press release said: ‘The much-anticipated John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger highlights the best debut novels. Among the rising stars of 2021 is Susan Allott with her Australian-set debut The Silence, praised by the Wall Street Journal as ‘emotionally wrenching.’ The full press release is here:
https://thecwa.co.uk/news/cwa-dagger-...
July 15, 2020
Book club questions - The Silence
QUESTIONS FOR READING GROUPS
These questions are also included at the back of the novel, for anyone who wants to incorporate them into their reading group discussion. Let me know in the comments if you want my input at your reading group, or if you have any further questions about The Silence that you’d like me to consider. I hope you have a good debate!
1. What do you think ‘The Silence’ of the title refers to?
2. The author writes from multiple points of view in the novel, switching point of view in each chapter. Do you think this is an effective way of telling the story? Do you think any perspectives are missing?
3. Louisa tells Isla, ‘We were going to leave all the old ways behind in England. It felt adventurous, like anything was possible.’ How is the experience of migration depicted in The Silence and how does it play into the problems in Louisa and Joe’s marriage?
4. The word ‘sorry’ recurs in the novel, and apologies sometimes come belatedly, or from the wrong person. Sometimes they are withheld entirely. Why do you think the word ‘sorry’ is important in The Silence?
5. Do you have any sympathy for Steve as a character? If so, how do you reconcile this with what he does?
6. Why do you think Isla’s grandma asks her to whisper her worst secret in her ear?
7. Andrea Walker says, ‘My mum used to say, [Steve] doesn’t take kids from nice families’. Isla thinks, ‘this might be funny if it were not so unspeakably sad.’ What do you think Isla means by this?
8. At the end of the novel, Isla decides to remember her father as ‘not all bad.’ How is memory significant in The Silence?
These questions are also included at the back of the novel, for anyone who wants to incorporate them into their reading group discussion. Let me know in the comments if you want my input at your reading group, or if you have any further questions about The Silence that you’d like me to consider. I hope you have a good debate!
1. What do you think ‘The Silence’ of the title refers to?
2. The author writes from multiple points of view in the novel, switching point of view in each chapter. Do you think this is an effective way of telling the story? Do you think any perspectives are missing?
3. Louisa tells Isla, ‘We were going to leave all the old ways behind in England. It felt adventurous, like anything was possible.’ How is the experience of migration depicted in The Silence and how does it play into the problems in Louisa and Joe’s marriage?
4. The word ‘sorry’ recurs in the novel, and apologies sometimes come belatedly, or from the wrong person. Sometimes they are withheld entirely. Why do you think the word ‘sorry’ is important in The Silence?
5. Do you have any sympathy for Steve as a character? If so, how do you reconcile this with what he does?
6. Why do you think Isla’s grandma asks her to whisper her worst secret in her ear?
7. Andrea Walker says, ‘My mum used to say, [Steve] doesn’t take kids from nice families’. Isla thinks, ‘this might be funny if it were not so unspeakably sad.’ What do you think Isla means by this?
8. At the end of the novel, Isla decides to remember her father as ‘not all bad.’ How is memory significant in The Silence?
May 11, 2020
Inspiration for The Silence
Now that The Silence is published in the UK (in ebook and audio only for now - hardback to follow 6th August) I thought I'd post something about the inspiration behind it.
The Silence began as a story about my experience of living and working in Sydney in the late nineties. More specifically, my experience of failing to love Australia, while my ex-pat friends were excited and amazed, desperate to stay, to see more. It wasn’t Australia, it was me. I knew this as I followed the hordes to the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Cairns. I swam with dolphins and went paragliding. I travelled in a camper van along the Great Ocean Road. And I tried to ignore the constant, nagging need to go home.
I started writing when I got back to London. The book I tried to write was about a young British woman called Louisa who, like me, left Australia to return to the UK, driven by a longing for which the word ‘homesick’ seemed inadequate. Like me, she got back to England and wondered what was wrong with her. The need for home evaporated on the tarmac at Heathrow and quickly became absurd, embarrassing. What had she done? Why had she run away from all that light and space and natural beauty?
That experience was the seed from which my story grew, but it didn’t come to life until I started exploring the world Louisa had left behind in Sydney: her husband Joe and their neighbours, Steve and Mandy. I wrote against my own experience, describing Australia through the eyes of people who loved it, who called it home. I wrote about Sydney’s colours, its suburban streets, its distinct light, and I rediscovered them from a retrospective place. They became rich and vibrant. Early readers told me to ditch Louisa’s chapters set in the UK. Your story’s in Australia, they told me. I wasn’t sure I believed them. How could I write a novel set in Australia? I’d failed at Australia. I didn’t have what it took.
Enter stage left, the man I wanted to marry. He was kind, funny and (would you believe it) Australian. He encouraged me to keep writing. We went to our local cinema to see Lantana and Rabbit Proof Fence. I read Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, Christos Tsiolkas, Helen Garner. I discovered a non-fiction book called Australia, The History of a Nation by Phillip Knightley, which describes a policeman who comes home from work and cries on his veranda, because his job requires him to remove Aboriginal children from their families. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The book was shelved for several years while we raised our children. We visited Australia a few times and I drank it all in. I listened. I took photos of weatherboard houses and gum trees and telegraph poles. Cockatoos in suburban gardens. I stored it all away until the kids had started school. By the time I sat down again to write, I had over a decade of material percolating in my head. I still wasn’t sure I could do it, or if I had the right even to try. But it fell onto the page, regardless.
The Silence is partly about migration; about making a new home on your own terms, and how liberating that can be. It’s also about the other extreme, the pain and damage of removing children forcibly from their homes. Indirectly, it’s about the arrogance and brutality of my British ancestors in claiming Australia as a colony, and the trauma of this that is carried through the generations. Somewhere along the way, in the process of writing and researching, I made my peace with a continent that challenged and overwhelmed me, but didn’t let me go.
The Silence began as a story about my experience of living and working in Sydney in the late nineties. More specifically, my experience of failing to love Australia, while my ex-pat friends were excited and amazed, desperate to stay, to see more. It wasn’t Australia, it was me. I knew this as I followed the hordes to the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Cairns. I swam with dolphins and went paragliding. I travelled in a camper van along the Great Ocean Road. And I tried to ignore the constant, nagging need to go home.
I started writing when I got back to London. The book I tried to write was about a young British woman called Louisa who, like me, left Australia to return to the UK, driven by a longing for which the word ‘homesick’ seemed inadequate. Like me, she got back to England and wondered what was wrong with her. The need for home evaporated on the tarmac at Heathrow and quickly became absurd, embarrassing. What had she done? Why had she run away from all that light and space and natural beauty?
That experience was the seed from which my story grew, but it didn’t come to life until I started exploring the world Louisa had left behind in Sydney: her husband Joe and their neighbours, Steve and Mandy. I wrote against my own experience, describing Australia through the eyes of people who loved it, who called it home. I wrote about Sydney’s colours, its suburban streets, its distinct light, and I rediscovered them from a retrospective place. They became rich and vibrant. Early readers told me to ditch Louisa’s chapters set in the UK. Your story’s in Australia, they told me. I wasn’t sure I believed them. How could I write a novel set in Australia? I’d failed at Australia. I didn’t have what it took.
Enter stage left, the man I wanted to marry. He was kind, funny and (would you believe it) Australian. He encouraged me to keep writing. We went to our local cinema to see Lantana and Rabbit Proof Fence. I read Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, Christos Tsiolkas, Helen Garner. I discovered a non-fiction book called Australia, The History of a Nation by Phillip Knightley, which describes a policeman who comes home from work and cries on his veranda, because his job requires him to remove Aboriginal children from their families. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The book was shelved for several years while we raised our children. We visited Australia a few times and I drank it all in. I listened. I took photos of weatherboard houses and gum trees and telegraph poles. Cockatoos in suburban gardens. I stored it all away until the kids had started school. By the time I sat down again to write, I had over a decade of material percolating in my head. I still wasn’t sure I could do it, or if I had the right even to try. But it fell onto the page, regardless.
The Silence is partly about migration; about making a new home on your own terms, and how liberating that can be. It’s also about the other extreme, the pain and damage of removing children forcibly from their homes. Indirectly, it’s about the arrogance and brutality of my British ancestors in claiming Australia as a colony, and the trauma of this that is carried through the generations. Somewhere along the way, in the process of writing and researching, I made my peace with a continent that challenged and overwhelmed me, but didn’t let me go.
