A csendgyár

by Bridget Collins, Judit Bernadett Borbély (Translator)

Az egész világ eltűnik, ha belépsz a csendgyárba

Henry csendről álmodik - olyan világról, ahol nem hallatszik az órák engesztelhetetlen ketyegése, a részegek óbégatása, nem csattog a lovak patkója a macskaköves utcákon.
Aztán találkozik Sir Edwarddel, egy rejtélyes úriemberrel, aki pontosan ezt árulja. Egy drága selymet, ami elnyeli a világ zaját - mindazt, amiből Henrynek már annyira elege van.
Azért hívják el a gyárba, hogy meggyógyítsa Sir Edward lányának hallását. Henry egyre erősebben vonzódik a zajokat elnyelő selyemhez, e túlvilági ajándékhoz, és felkelti érdeklődését az anyag eredete. Sir Edward lányának nevelőnője többször is figyelmezteti Henryt, de a férfi ennek ellenére sem tud lemondani az egyedülálló selyemről.
Vajon mi lesz a vonzalmának ára? Túl késő lesz-e a visszafordulni?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic, Fiction, Historical, Magical Realism, Horror

383 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2024

About the author

Bridget Collins has works written under the name B.R Collins.

Reviews

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s impossible not to be captivated by this gothic historical mystery, especially with its eerie and artistic cover that seems to speak to your soul and pique your most eccentric cravings.

I hadn't had the chance to delve into Bridget Collins' previous works before, but after reading this book, I'm certain it won't be my last. If you're in the market for originality, uniqueness, and surprising plot twists, then this book is a perfect fit for you. Just imagine a special silk, spun by spiders, that envelops you in a deafening silence unlike anything you've ever experienced before. Is it mind-spinning, scary, astounding, and earth-shattering? Absolutely.

The main plot unfolds across two timelines: the first perspective is presented through the diary of Sophia Ashmore Percy in 1820. She travels to a Greek island with her husband James, intending to explore a specimen that could change the course of the world. However, upon arrival, they discover that their scientist friend is already deceased, and they are left in the care of a mysterious woman named Hira. Sophia's budding friendship and deep connection with Hira will change her life in ways she never imagined.

The narrative then shifts to decades later, introducing Henry Latimer, a widower working in his father-in-law's store as an audiologist. Still grappling with grief and depression, Henry's life takes a dramatic turn when he receives a special gift from Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy: a piece of silk produced by spiders, which severs his connection to the earth with its magical properties. Henry's encounter with this fabric leads him to Cathemute House in Telverton, where he meets Sir Edward and his deaf daughter Philomel. Determined to help Philomel, Henry becomes entangled in a partnership with Sir Ashmore-Percy to introduce spider silk to various markets. However, as Henry's feelings for Edward deepen, he begins to question Miss Fielding's warnings about the silk's potentially cursed nature, which manifests in various afflictions among workers and adults alike.

Overall, this is a well-written, intense gothic mystery that immediately draws you in. The mechanization of the Telverton silk factory is depicted with vivid realism, offering a glimpse into the lives of workers and the machinery they operate.

The conclusion ties up the narrative threads neatly, making this a must-read for fans of historical thrillers and gothic mysteries alike.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

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[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I loved two previous novels by Ms Collins. Her historical fiction novels are with a big dose of fantasy and the combination works for me in an extraordinary way. The Silence Factory offers a warning against the theft of what constitutes a natural and sacred element and the use of it for materialistic enrichment. The abuse leads to misfortune and tragedy. There is a strong Gothic feel around the places and characters which is trademark of Ms Collins' novels, and her idea for this book is again unique. I am grateful for the journey to the world in which noise and silence and both separate and intertwined.
*A big thank-you to Bridget Collins, HarperCollins UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*

[mimi (depression slump) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d like to thank my mother for having passed down curiosity as a genetic trait because the amount of books I finished only because I was curious about their ending… immeasurable.

Unfortunately, this one was not one to hold your breath for.
This doesn't mean it was bad, don't get me wrong, but the premises are simply too good for a story that, in reality, is not that astonishing.

Two greedy, evil men kidnap sacred spiders for their interests, but end up broke and with their reputation ruined because karma is a bitch.
There's no curse, no ghosts, not a enough good reason to overlook child labour nor sexism, and the shocking truths are not that shocking when you remember who these characters are - again, they are all bad and I'm so glad two out of three died.

↠ 3.5 stars

Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Adrian Dooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, that cover right? Irresistible. I was all in on this one even before I skimmed over the blurb.

A Victorian gothic, part fantasy, part sci-fi tale about spiders and their silk!

Told in two time frames, in the present(Victorian era(ish) England) and in the past, a couple of generations before where the ancestors of some of our main characters are searching the Greek Islands for a mythical spider, who legend has it, makes silk that can silence the world among other things.

A really intriguing premise and the two time lines work well up to a point. The writing in large parts is absolutely beautiful. I’ve never read this author before but there is certainly a flair to her words that is very impressive.
The story is really interesting and both worlds feel very familiar and yet otherworldly.

Now the problems I had with the book:

It’s too goddam long. There are large parts of the book where little if anything happens. The book really dragged in parts.
The characters. Not one of them felt well written. They were either waifer thin or just incredibly stupid and unlikeable. Our main character Henry is both of the latter. Like the book kind of hangs on his exploits and he just makes too many dumb decisions, seems to idolise another hugely unlikeable character for no conceivable reason other than to move the story along and just becomes incredibly frustrating and unpleasant to spend time with.

Also, the storyline from the past just stops dead, after promising a lot more. It ends up just being a vehicle to explain where the spiders came from and that could have been done in a couple of chapters. It had been slowly revealing what may or may have been going on on the island and then….thats it, no more. Infuriating.

This could have been great. There are sprinklings of brilliance and the idea is so interesting. It just falls apart on a lot of the basics for me. Character development and storytelling. It feels muddled, like the author ultimately was unsure what she wanted the book to be.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because, despite my criticisms, there was nearly a gem here.

Many thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you for the eARC, NetGalley and HarperCollins!

I've read and enjoyed both The Binding and The Betrayals, so of course I requested this as soon as I saw it on NetGalley!

The writing was great and it had a very unique and interesting concept. It certainly has gothic vibes, with Bridget Collins' signature magical element.

The book has two timelines: Sophia's pov, as she travels to Greece with her controlling husband, in search of a rumoured spider breed with magical qualities. The other pov is Henry, who is coincidentally thrust into the world of Sophia's great-nephew, the owner of a spider-silk factory.

I was interested in the story and curious to see where it would lead, but I didn't particularly care about the characters. The book lost me on the "relationships", which felt very forced and unlikely to me, unfortunately. It made Henry extremely unlikeable with how intentionally blind he was.
The magical element, while a unique concept, didn't lead to anything particularly interesting for me.

Overall, it didn't really stand out and won't be very memorable for me.

[Sal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a mess of a book full of unlikeable characters and confusing plotlines.
The story is told through two viewpoints. Henry, recently widowed through childbirth and struggling to find his place in the world, accepts a job offer in Telverton from the mysterious Sir Edward. There he finds a town crippled by the strange effects of the silk weaving factory and falls under a strange enchantment. Sophie's story is told through the pages of a diary, detailing her travels with her husband and their time on Kratos where they discover the spiders at the centre of this tenuous web.
The two stories never really come together and Sophie's tale, after a promising start, becomes an overblown gothic affair that is never properly resolved.
Henry is the most spineless, vacillating character. He developes an improbable passion for his new employer, Sir Edward, and despite abundant evidence to the contrary, continues to believe he is a decent man misled by others.
Most of the other characters, have no real depth, and Sir Edward's motivations remain a complete mystery.
The central idea of the spider's Silk has real promise but it doesn't really get properly explored. I wanted to know more about the sacred aspects of their worship on the island and why the local women welcomed Sophie into their rituals.
And the most unbelievable aspect of the whole book? Nobody seems to have any hint of arachnophobia!! Everyone happily handles the spiders and no one seems worried at all about them getting out. If I lived in Telverton the funny noise issues would be the least of my concerns!!
I wasn't sure what this book was trying to say other than some vague themes about relationships and parenthood, and the ending was improbably neat. All in all a very disappointing read.
Thanks to Harper Collins UK and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bridget Collins’ books seem to get better and better! I tried to savour this book but it was just too good and I rushed through it. This was gothic in feel- and the factory town of Telverton was sinister.I wasn’t really sure what to make of the main character- maybe *odd* covers it. Arachnaphobics beware! Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

[Holden Wunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction can always be a hit or miss and there was not a single miss in The Silence Factory.

I absolutely love this genre and it tends to get a lot of slack for being a slow burn and I typically don’t mind that at all but have to choose wisely when reading historical fiction. Typically that’s being in the right mindset and mood, but there was no need to fret here as this book didn’t fall into the typical entrapping of reading a historical fiction book.

The plot was so freaking fun and fantastical and could’ve gone fantasy or science fiction and lended a lot to making this a quick read. It doesn’t go that way but I loved how Collins incorporated facets of other genres seamlessly while retaining the genre she is in and not butchering what makes scifi/fantasy enjoyable.

There was so much nuance in this book from the grieving widow, to gay love, colonization and commentary on social classes. It wasn’t preachy, it was real and beautiful and I couldn’t get enough.

The cover alone had me desperate for this book and I was counting the days to release and still am even after reading. I cannot wait to pick this one up and add it to my collection the second it’s released. Bridget Collins can do not wrong!

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

thanks to the publisher and netgalley for afree copy in return for an open and honest review

enjoyed this book in parts but felt it was missing a little something overall as you entered a different world and the plot had the potential to be to be good.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often you read a novel that is so blinding in its brilliance: uniquely plotted and beautifully written. 

The above quote is from my own review of The Binding by Bridget Collins. In The Silence Factory, she has done it again. The end. Only joking! But seriously, this novel is brilliant. I could not put it down and read it in a day, no mean feat for me as it was 380 pages long and that is getting dangerously close to being a ‘big book’, which I’m reading less and less of lately. But in truth, when it comes to Bridget Collins, I would read any length of novel. She is an absolute master of the Victorian era gothic historical fiction niche.

First of all, if you’re afraid of spiders, this novel will terrify you. This is not a warning to take lightly. Many aspects of this story tread the boards of horror, but when it comes to the spiders, I can only imagine that if they terrify you, you will find this an extremely discomforting read.

Bridget Collins captures the Victorian era of industrial progress and social disharmony with perfection. The poverty, the lack of workplace regulations, the dismissal of the poor as having rights, the abuse of children within the workplace. It’s all here, in technicolour sobriety. I absolutely love how she brings this era to life, highlighting the corruption and greed that drove so many on their quest for wealth and status.

Our main character, Henry, is a sad man, He has lost his wife and infant, he works in a job that he doesn’t particularly like for a father-in-law he has nothing in common with and feels like a disappointment to. He is ripe for plucking by a manipulative industrialist driven by greed and corruption. While Henry is dazzled at first, by flattery and desire, he slowly begins to comprehend the horror of what he has been drawn into.

Alongside this storyline is another, the diary of the wife of Sir Edward’s uncle, Sophie. It details a sordid tale of botanical theft and greed, of betrayal and desperation. Sophie’s story just about broke my heart. It’s an example of so many historical instances of colonial theft and entitlement.
Needless to say, I highly recommend this one. A stunning, brilliant novel.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

[Alison Bradbury · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having enjoyed 'The Binding' I was interested to read the new novel from Bridget Collins.

This follows the story of Henry Latimer. Widowed and working in his father in laws hearing aid shop, Henry is just trudging through life. One day, Sir Edward Ashmore - Percy visits the store looking for help for his daughter. Before he leaves, Sir Edward gives Henry a piece of cloth that , on one side, blocks all sound, and on the other, feint whispers of something can be heard. Soon Sir Edward is hiring Henry to try to cure his daughter, Philomel's deafness.

Upon arrival at Sir Edward's home, Henry meets Philomel's governess, who heartily disapproves of Henry and warns him to leave the town as soon as possible. The backdrop to this story is the Ashmore-Percy silk factory. Previously a lace weaving mill it has been transformed into a fabric mill where Sir Edward's mysterious fabric is produced from the silk of a very special and rare spider. However, all is not as it seems at the factory as the workers endure terrible conditions and suffer 'accidents'.

This novel has a huge helping of gothic about it but it is very slow moving and, quite frankly, confusing. I did not enjoy the pacing of the novel, or the sections set in the past with Sir Edward's aunt and uncle looking for the spiders on an island somewhere. These bits were in diary form told from the point of view of the aunt and I found them equally as baffling as the main story.

All in all I was disappointed.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Huge thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for an advance e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review!

Oh boy. They really had me in the first half. This is such an intriguing concept and there were some tense and eerie scenes of Henry’s first encounters with the silk made from some mysterious spiders (arachnophobes need not apply to this story, btw) but by the book’s end I found no one to be redeemable and some really problematic messages about abusive people and relationships.

This is mainly Henry’s story, with some interstitials between chapters from a woman named Sophia telling the tale about how the spiders came to be here. Both of these people find themselves in abusive relationships and I HATED seeing Henry constantly covering for and supporting his abuser. At first I was very uncomfortable with myself that my main critique was victim-blaming the main character for defending their abuser (because of course they would! They don’t see the abuser for the absolute garbage heap of a person they actually are!) But as Henry’s present day actions continue to reveal increasingly flawed morals and his true past comes to light I came to realize: this man does not deserve my pity.

I’ll hide these flaws in spoiler tags, as they’re in the book’s second half/conclusion:


- A flood *conveniently* destroys the factory in the book’s final chapters and Henry battles a confessed psychopath who confesses to killing several women and enjoying it, as well as relishing his human experimentations. Henry feels regretful that he cannot save this man in the flood and spares barely a thought for a woman who is TIED UP IN A ROOM FULL OF PSYCHOTROPIC SPIDERS WHO ALSO DROWNS (and whom he failed to listen to/help earlier because she opposed his abuser)
- It is revealed in the last few pages that Henry’s daughter - whom we’ve been led to believe throughout the story died while being born, in turn killing her mother - is not dead, but in fact simply abandoned by Henry to cousins because he couldn’t handle the grief.
- In the final pages, Henry gazes longingly up at the failed factory, wishing he could see Sir Edward again and REMAIN FRIENDS with someone who has:
- Allowed his wife to be locked into a room with psychotropic spiders while heavily pregnant
- Mentally and physically abused him
- Willfully permitted and actively engaged in human experimentation
- Employed children in his factories and ignored the mental and physical abuse the endured
- (This isn’t about Henry’s morality but it also rubbed me the wrong way, so I’m including it in spoilers alongside the others) In the excerpts from Sophia’s diary, it’s revealed that she is also trapped in an abusive relationship. We come to find out that she died horrifically without getting out of said relationship. She also shares a moment with a woman but the story tarnishes this too when a psychopath uses the diaries to develop a device that robs a person of their autonomy, suggesting that Sophia didn’t willingly have said encounter.

[Cami L. González · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

Me lancé al libro a ciegas sin siquiera leer la sinopsis. Me pareció interesante, una especie de novela gótica con un protagonista masculino que estaba en pleno proceso de duelo.

Henry perdió a su esposa e hija y ahora vive el día a día en la tienda de su suegro cuando un empresario, Edward, le presente su seda milagrosa que proporciona silencio, Henry no dudará en trabajar para él y ayudarlo a que la seda sea un éxito en el mercado.

"Construimos muros para proteger nuestros cuerpos del mundo, pero dejamos nuestras mentes expuestas al asalto por todos los flancos".

El libro fue narrado en su mayoría por Henry, pero tenía fragmentos del diario de Sophia, una ancestra de Edward. En el diario fuimos aprendiendo el origen de la milagrosa seda y cómo fue que Sophia y su esposo, lograron hacerse con las arañas y descubrir sus propiedades. Mientras que en el presente acompañamos a Henry mientras va conociendo a Edward y va encantándose más y más de la seda que quiere vender.

Muchas de las novelas góticas que he leído son con protagonistas mujeres, creo que porque mucho tiene que ver con ellas dándose cuenta de cosas y el resto de gente no creyéndole (¿acaso hay algo que sea más experiencia femenina que eso?). Me pareció interesante que Henry fuera el protagonista, sobre todo porque partió como un personaje en su punto más bajo por el duelo de su esposa e hija. Sin embargo, no me dio lo que esperaba, fue un personaje que ignoró todo lo que pasaba a su alrededor solo por lo encantado que estaba de Edward. Fue frustrante leer el cómo justificaba cosas injustificables y solo para el final decidió hacer algo al respecto y no porque se diera cuenta, sino que porque las cosas no salieron como esperaba. Y ni siquiera puedo decir que Henry se vendiera como un personaje más gris, no alguien bueno, porque claramente esa no fue la idea.

"Vosotros, los hombres, vuestras religiones, sois todos iguales. Nos preguntas por las historias de viejos dioses y nos miras por encima del hombro como si nosotros nos las creyéramos, y te crees superior... y aun así tomas lo que quieres, como hicieron ellos".

Creo que ese fue mi punto bajo con el libro, al cruzar la mitad del libro no me era posible apoyar a Henry. Entiendo cuando personajes se engañan, cuando no toman buenas decisiones, pero Henry vio cosas horribles y las justificó por su adoración por Edward. Ahí ya no era por la paz que le entregaba la seda, por el duelo que estaba viviendo, sino que la obsesión que él sentía. No me gustó que el punto de quiebre de Henry llegara cuando no había vuelta atrás, le quitó el peso a que se diera cuenta o hiciera el mea culpa.

Por otro lado, me gustó mucho la historia de Sophia escrita en el diario. Creo que, por lejos, fue mi parte favorita del libro, la forma en que partió como la esposa abnegada y la poca libertad que fue aprendiendo poco a poco. Al mismo tiempo, ella tenía ese toque de novela de gótica por la relación con el esposo y el comportamiento de este. Me gustó el avance de la historia en estas entradas del diario, creo que esa historia me resultó mucho más interesante que la de Henry.

"Al mundo le gustamos más cuando somos dóciles y silenciosas, y no ocupamos más espacio del necesario. Más tarde le enseñaré a ser astuta, a encontrar su propio camino sin que parezca que se resiste, como el agua que escapa de las manos unidas de un hombre. Ella hará todo lo que yo no puedo hacer".

Todo lo de la seda, las arañas de una isla de Grecia, el poder que tenía y el silencio me gustó mucho. Fue interesante y lo encontré bien construido. Era un componente fantástico, pero presentado de una forma que se sentía aterrizado y realista dentro de la novela. Disfruté el tema de las arañas y el cómo se podía usar esta seda. Creo que el paso final lo sentí un poco a la rápida, me faltó más preparación o pruebas de lo que querían hacer para que me hiciera sentido. Sin embargo, encontré muy interesante la crítica que hizo la autora al final.

Los ecos del silencio es una novela con tintes góticos y de terror en la que un hombre que está viviendo un importante duelo se ve atraído por un empresario que vende una misteriosa seda. Una novela con gran ambientación, pero un protagonista que solo resultó decepcionante.

"Los dioses de los antiguos mitos eran infantiles, violentos, demasiado humanos. Allí, en aquella isla, se habían aferrado a algo más profundo, a algo misterioso, desconocido y amable. Más amable incluso que... Estaba a punto de escribir mi Dios. Pero ese ya no es mi Dios; James puede quedárselo para él, si le place. Si tengo un Dios, no es Él sino Ella, una que puede mantenerse tan firme como un árbol, cargando con el dolor de otra para que un niño pueda nacer".

[Abbie Toria · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

An eerie and ominous gothic read, The Silence Factory is historical fantasy woven with horror and thriller threads.

Bridget Collins weaves a very atmospheric read. Sophia's diary entries gave me real undertones of The Yellow Wallpaper, building the ominous tension and our suspicions of her husband. Meanwhile, in the other timeline, I often found Henry a frustrating character and lost patience with him later on, but this is part of what makes Collin's writing so clever.

On the whole, this one was not for me, as the horror and thriller elements didn't make it an enjoyable read for me. But I know that it's these very parts that will make it a book many of you will love!

It was great to see Deaf characters and fingerspeak, as well as an important discourse on how vital it is to allow people to communicate in sign languages, especially when it's their first language. The LGBT+ characters and relationships make this a good Pride month read too.

I found themes of child loss hard at times, but also felt this was explored well by Collins, along with other important themes, such as, colonialism, the treatment of nature, grief, women's powerlessness in these times, silence and being silenced, the impact of Victorian industry and the conditions of factory workers, and the wealthy's disregard for the working class' welfare. All of these made this an immersive and thought-provoking narrative with a real focus on power.

All in all, the spiders left me feeling unsettled, with a shiver down my spine, and a sense of foreboding. Whether that's a good or bad sign is completely down to a reader's preference! Definitely not one for those afraid of spiders!

[Hanna☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ (Free Palestine) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The first half of this was fun and had a really interesting premise, I liked the ominous foreshadowing
but I found the outcome unsatisfactory, messy and a little predictable. The journal extracts were soo interesting and I really wanted to see how they lent themselves to the current narrative but they ended up being detached to the overall plot, they felt more like a separate story than anything which was meant to add value to our protagonist's actions. Nevertheless, it was my first physical read in a long time so I had a lot of fun in that sense, but yes, if we're looking at the book then I personally think it could have been done better.

[Holden Wunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction can always be a hit or miss and there was not a single miss in The Silence Factory.

I absolutely love this genre and it tends to get a lot of slack for being a slow burn and I typically don’t mind that at all but have to choose wisely when reading historical fiction. Typically that’s being in the right mindset and mood, but there was no need to fret here as this book didn’t fall into the typical entrappings of reading a historical fiction book.

The plot was so freaking fun and fantastical and could’ve gone fantasy or science fiction and lended a lot to making this a quick read. It doesn’t go that way but I loved how Collins incorporated facets of other genres seamlessly while retaining the genre she is in and not butchering what makes scifi/fantasy enjoyable.

There was so much nuance in this book from the grieving widow, to gay love, colonization and commentary on social classes. It wasn’t preachy, it was real and beautiful and I couldn’t get enough.

The cover alone had me desperate for this book and I was counting the days to release and still am even after reading. I cannot wait to pick this one up and add it to my collection the second it’s released. Bridget Collins can do not wrong!

Thank you NetGalley for giving me this ARC I’m floored.

[Cáit · Rating 5 out of 5]

★★★★★ - 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins
༘Spoiler free ༘
⭐️4.9375/5

[Wow, absolutely incredible. I will be reading every book written by this author.

Stayed up until half two because i couldn’t stop reading this one. Review to come tomorrow once i’ve had some sleep.]

Fantasy Scoring
Worldbuilding ➷ ✅ 5/5
Foreshadowing ➷ ✅ 5/5
Plot ➷ ✅ 5/5
Relationships ➷ ✅ 4.75/5

Find me on: insta | tiktok

Thank you to Bridget Collins, HarperCollins and NetGalley for the opportunity to provide my honest opinion on the ARC of this book.

[Melanie Caldicott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bridget Collins is a unique voice in the historical fiction genre. Weaving a touch of magical realism into her novels she likes to explore emotional themes and reexamine history, relationships and humanity from interesting new angles. The Silence Factory takes us to industrial Victorian England with a creative reinvention of the silk weaving factories. This novel interrogates voice and agency viewing the restrictions placed on subsets of people based on their gender, sexuality, class and disability. It is also a story of echoes with hints of colonialism and the ethics of scientific research. Thought provoking and fun! Although content warnings for arachnophobics!
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more along the lines of a 3.75 rating (because I'm of two minds about how well the romance/infatuation bit fit in, and a few other things), but I'm not going to nit-pick.

This story is told partially in the form of the diary entries of Sophia Ashmore-Percy, wife of abusive and obnoxious James, who is searching for a rare spider (that may or may not exist) on a remote Greek island (I would have shoved James off the nearest cliff or fed him hemlock - the islanders would have been ecstatic to help). The majority of the story is told from the perspective of audiologist Henry Latimer, who has been commissioned to help Philomel, the young daughter of Jame's nephew Sir Edward, hear again. Henry, however, gets sidetracked by Edwards industrial business of spinning silk from those rare spiders his uncle brought back from Greece many decades ago.  The silk has this "magical" ability to block out sounds.  However, not everything is as innocent as it seems. There is rot at the heart of the silk making industry (not to mention a lot of really nasty people).

I was most interested in Sophia's story, so was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more of it.  Henry is a pathetic character who sometimes got on my nerves - naive, always apologizing, grovelling and looking for a bit of positive attention.  I suppose it shows how well Bridget Collins can write different characters. Some of the side characters were also pretty interesting.  The parts depicting the silk factory are realistic, with the creepy undertone that something isn't quite right.  The same can be said for the mansion, which gives off distinct gothic vibes.  The story concept was interesting, but I found in the end, that the story lacked something, and I'm not sure what it is.  Maybe not enough spiders for my taste? Too much mundane nastiness in the industrial portions of the novel?  But I still liked the novel. It has pretty spiders, silence-inducing silk, and a rotten industrial underbelly.

[Marianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m going to start off by saying that I was a big fan of the Binding, and I had to go back multiple times to check that this was in fact written by the same author.
Because this book was bad. Like genuinely- it was bad.
The only thing worth mentioning was the writing and even that wasnt enough to make this story worth it.
We follow the single most boring irrelevant character; he has no agency, no personality, he is so fucking gullible and lovestruck it’s laughable and it is only in the the last eighty pages that he realises that something’s ✨not right✨. We spend the entire story with a man that keeps looking at his shoes and slamming headfirst into the godamn wall and then wondering why he’s got a headache. I hated him he irritated the fuck out of me and I had to watch him do absolutely nothing for the story for 300 pages except walk around and think about an awful man doing incredibly shady things and how in love he was with this awful horrible man and quite honestly it was pathetic. in fact I didn’t like any of the characters in this book except the women. Who were the most interesting part but unfortunately secondary to the narrative. The plot didn’t amount to anything, the resolution was cheap and blunt, the plot twist was stupid and I was not entirely comfortable with the way she talked about pregnancy in the year of our lord 2024 when so many women have been denied the right to their own bodies. But alas what do I know.
All in all I’m not sure what this book was to trying to do but it failed miserably.

[Valarie - WoodsyBookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Silence Factory is split between two timelines: One timeline follows Sophia Ashmore as she assists her husband James in his search for a rare breed of spiders known as Pseudonephila Sireine on a remote island in Greece. The primary timeline follows Henry Latimer, an audiologist and poet, as he attempts to assist Edward Ashmore in gaining investors for his unique spider silk fabric. 

The fabric is unusual in the fact that one side creates complete silence, cutting off all sound of the outside world, while the other side causes a sound nicknamed the Telverton malaise which causes an illness known as the echoes. The echoes cause deafness and madness, which has corrupted the town and all who live and work around the factory. 

As Sophia discovers more about the island people, the spiders, and her growing love for a village woman named Hira so too does Henry learn of the curse of the spiders as he struggles with his own infatuation for Sir Edward. 

This book is so hard to explain! I enjoyed it, though I will say the characters are not lovable - this book is filled with characters who are cruel, self-absorbed, and gaslight each other left and right. Even so, I found the book interesting and it kept me invested. 

There are a few side characters I would have liked to see more of like Philomel, Edward's daughter, who was born deaf due to complications with the spiders - her and her mother's story would make an interesting prequel/sequel. 

[Luiz Fernando · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this book. The author’s premise was very appealing: in the noisy world where we live, silence is a luxury that we long for. What if there was a way to “draw a curtain” and cut down every single noise for as long as we wanted? I could imagine wonderful uses for this, such as reading and sleeping. In this book, that miracle is possible with a silk produced by an extremely rare species of spiders from Greece that can isolate any sound from your ears.

The main character of the story, Henry, is summoned to the mansion of a rich man to try to cure his daughter's deafness. This same man owns the factory that produces the mentioned silk. From there on, the story deviates from its original premise. I found the central character to be very incoherent; I was unable to understand most of his thoughts and actions. He was also utterly self-deprecating.

The most interesting parts for me were the diary entries of Lady Ashmore-Percy, who was the first to discover the spiders during a trip to Greece with her husband in the 1800s. But those were the shortest parts of the book. I found myself dragging through Henry’s chapters just to finish the book, only to arrive at a tasteless ending with some loose ends. Definitely not a book for me.

[Hadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit #2: This book was phenomenal, for the most part. The world-building, the descriptions, the magical element and its incorporation into the story were all done wonderfully. The characters, on the other hand, lacked depth. The story felt rushed and was shorter compared to her previous novels, which was surprising. The plot was so fast-paced that I couldn't stop reading and ended up finishing the book in a day. My honest rating would probably be 4.5 ⭐ but since it's by my favourite author, I'm going to bump it up to 5⭐.

Edit: THIS COVER IS EVERYTHING 🤐🏭

need a cover for my new favourite book ASAP 🥺

[talia ♡]

thank GOD there's a new bridget collins to look forward to this year!!!

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Silence Factory
Bridget Collins

“They are only spiders, for pity’s sake, Sophia! Interesting ones, I grant you. But it is mere superstition…”

I found this perplexing. The mystery sustains the forward momentum needed to continue as this was slow. But the mystery was interesting and I wanted to uncover the secrets. Namely, is the factory a blessing or an abomination?

“But the silk has enchanted you.”

This is a gothic suspense about a powerful family, the magical and dangerous silk their fortune is built on and the exploitative history they are desperately trying to hide.

It has dual timelines. There’s the 1820 timeline where Sophia reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island to search for rare biological specimens. 🕷️

Decades later we have Henry, an audiologist who visits Sir Edward’s home, tasked with curing his daughter’s deafness. Sir Edward owns the Telverton silk factory.

Henry is eager to escape his troubled past and becomes obsessed with Sir Edward’s world, spinning silk with the rare and magical breed of spiders.

“If deafness were all… but arain silk is perfidious. Sometimes I think it corrodes the human soul. Its silence is meretricious, and its echoes are a curse.”

I enjoyed the storyline revolving around the spiders and their silk. This was interesting, especially as Henry learnt about the silk’s potentially cursed nature that can manifest in various afflictions.

“It is the silk. It is wrong, Mr Latimer. I cannot express it any more simply than that. The silk - is - wrong.”
“It made him - ill. Worse than ill. He is an idiot now,”
“You mean that the noise damaged his hearing?”
“No! Come, Mr Latimer, I of all people know the difference between a deaf child and an idiot one. It would break your heart to see him. The noise damaged his mind.”

The Silence Factory is a historic gothic mystery that is slow and overly descriptive but has so much intrigue at its core. The ending did pick up in pace and tied in nicely.

“He’s going to paint you as Harpocrates - the god of silence, you know.”

Huge thanks to @harpercollinsaustralia. The Silence Factory is released tomorrow, 9th May in Australia.

“You will never drown in too much love,” she said. “It is like water, it finds somewhere to go.”

[Cindy Spear · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Silence Factory is an unsettling and riveting gothic historical read. Original and thought provoking. I cannot say I was very comfortable reading it as it provoked a lot of eerie images but I was certainly moved at many levels. I felt numerous emotions from being horrified (by the nightmarish dark activities) to elated (with some of the more positive outcomes) and certainly captivated by the stunning poetic prose Bridget Collins delivers.

There are so many shades of atmospheric mystery in The Silence Factory. The story invites us into a world surrounded by a special silk, spun by unique spiders from Greece and shows us that nature cannot be harnessed without serious consequences. It cannot be managed ‘like a machine’ as one character states and ‘has more power than you realise.’ Some say this silk is enchanted, cursed even: so frighteningly dangerous. It definitely has a power that reminds me of Gollum’s ring (from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings) in how it possesses its wearer and deforms and twists the body and mind. There is a loss of common sense and willpower and makes a victim willing to conform to another’s wishes. It is a high price to pay for silence. And Henry is a man who seeks quiet and peace for he has lost two dear people in his life. When Sir Edward comes along with a silk sample and mentions his plans of ‘prosperity and hope,’ Henry falls into a deep well, or one might say a huge web of deceit. He is eager to please the silk factory tycoon and takes risks he may never have done before. I really got a clear picture of Henry’s personality: his flaws but also later his humanity.

The story is told from two viewpoints and timelines. Henry provides quite a vivid detail of the plot that unfolds in Sir Edward’s plans with his silk factory. The thirst for control, power and wealth certainly are high in the tycoon’s motives. But many lives are put at risk and destroyed by the production in the factory of this unusual silk. Henry slaves away trying to help his host initially without realising the part he is playing in releasing a great evil on the world. Until much later when a shocking truth comes to the surface, he then begins to question it all.

The second viewpoint is told by Sir Edward’s Great Aunt Sophia who gives us the history of how these spiders made it to England. They have been brought from Greece by Sir Edward’s Great-Uncle James who was like Odysseus travelling all over the Mediterranean. As Sir Edward says when discussing the painting of his ancestor: ‘He starved and struggled and suffered to bring the spiders back. They are his legacy to the world.” But Henry notices the ‘misery’ on the woman’s face beside James. What story does she tell? Well, we get to hear her account. Plus, her journal remains and it warns of the silk’s wicked powers. This valuable account is given to Henry by Miss Fielding, the governess to Sir Edward’s daughter. She plays an important role in warning Henry many times of the dangers of the silk. Her attempt to set things right and provide knowledge of the past are quite valuable, if only Henry would listen.

Secrets are revealed, plots unveiled and there’s freedom for some who are imprisoned or ensnared. The outcome for Henry is redeeming and I was glad of how the threads came together in a positive resolution for him. Though there is plenty of mayhem and on the edge of your seat hold your breath drama before that point! I won’t say anymore or risk giving away the plot. But the story is well-written, imaginative and one you won’t soon forget. If you don’t like spiders (and I don’t!) the descriptions could be uncomfortable but it did not keep me from reading it and certainly held my attention to the last page. 4.5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thanks to HarperCollins Australia and Netgalley for my review copy.

[Dan Bassett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry dreams of silence. He longs to shut out such thoughts of those around him. He wishes for total darkness to envelop his every sense and finally let him be at peace. Henry longs for nothing more in his life.
A world without the clattering of carriages tumbling over uneven, cobbled streets, the distant cries of drunken brawlers around the city, the relentless ticking of the clock demanding every second of his attention, never being able to deny himself from it….
Then one day a fascinating, mysterious gentleman who simply promises all that Henry longs for. A precious silk which on one side reverberates all sound back upon itself, yet turn it over and you can drown out the clamour and drudge of the world - everything Henry wishes to escape from.
Summoned to Sir Edward’s secluded factory to try and find a cure for his young daughter’s deafness, Henry soon finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into the origins of such an otherworldly gift: a gift that has travelled from the ancient Mediterranean glades all the way to English libraries, for what exactly makes this silk possible? What creature could spin such a thing of beautiful, tragic, tangible quality? Perhaps Henry will not be ready for just how deep the rabbit hole goes…
Yet ignoring repeated warnings, Henry allows himself to be the marionette of Sir Edward and his silk but when he learns the true cost of such a thing, will it be too late to simply cut the strings and walk away, or will his past entwine with his future in a way that means escape is surely impossible…
Compelling, devilishly gothic, and utterly enthralling, The Silence Factory weaves its web around you, ensuring your attention never leaves its pages.

The Silence Factory is like a tapestry woven with the finest silk and gilded in blood; you cannot help but be fascinated, yet horrified in the same breath. A gothic masterpiece of storytelling!
Hypnotic, gripping, addictive!

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Silence Factory was a delightful read from start to finish. The book's premise and principal characters were engaging and I enjoyed the back and forth between past and present with the inclusion of the diary entries. The prose was easy reading yet atmospheric and I always wished I could read a little more as I put the book down each night. I would definitely read further works by this author in the future. I am giving this book 4.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Book_.talk]

Can't wait

[lookmairead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collins 🤝 Autumn TBR

Listen, I love me some Bridget Collins when I’m craving dramatic gothic fantasy + thriller/suspense.

And when I say “listen” - I truly think it’s the best medium to consume her stories. I was so delighted to hear her as a narrator on her own story.

This world building felt pretty unique. My marketing/advertising background kinda loved the “sell” tactics within this. And the unreliable narrator vibes always keeps my attention.

The Binding is still my favorite (and where I recommend starting in her catalog), but the truth is, I’ll listen to whatever Collins creates.

3.75/5 Rounded up because I wish more people would add Collins to their TBR. 👀🤞