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Silent Y
In 2142, women control human reproduction—and they're about to weaponize it.
Dart Maylord is a brilliant but isolated endocrinology researcher working for the Department of Reproduction in the female-ruled half of a divided America. She’s never met a man, never questioned the wall that splits Washington, D.C., or the lies told about what stretches beyond it.
Until one day, a male researcher crosses that wall.
Alex Smern isn’t the violent Neanderthal Dart was led to expect—he’s sharp, disarmingly funny, and curious about the world she’s never dared to question. Their collaboration begins with science but quickly becomes something more dangerous: connection. Trust. Desire.
Then Dart stumbles on a classified document she shouldn’t see. The reproductive system isn't just being managed—it's being manipulated. And men are being systematically erased.
Worse still, Dart’s own family may be orchestrating the scheme.
As she digs deeper, Dart must choose between protecting the people she loves and exposing a truth that could unravel the fragile balance of power. With Alex by her side and everything she thought she knew crumbling around her, Dart has to decide: is losing family worth rebellion?
Because if she doesn’t act soon, there may be nothing left to save.
Dart Maylord is a brilliant but isolated endocrinology researcher working for the Department of Reproduction in the female-ruled half of a divided America. She’s never met a man, never questioned the wall that splits Washington, D.C., or the lies told about what stretches beyond it.
Until one day, a male researcher crosses that wall.
Alex Smern isn’t the violent Neanderthal Dart was led to expect—he’s sharp, disarmingly funny, and curious about the world she’s never dared to question. Their collaboration begins with science but quickly becomes something more dangerous: connection. Trust. Desire.
Then Dart stumbles on a classified document she shouldn’t see. The reproductive system isn't just being managed—it's being manipulated. And men are being systematically erased.
Worse still, Dart’s own family may be orchestrating the scheme.
As she digs deeper, Dart must choose between protecting the people she loves and exposing a truth that could unravel the fragile balance of power. With Alex by her side and everything she thought she knew crumbling around her, Dart has to decide: is losing family worth rebellion?
Because if she doesn’t act soon, there may be nothing left to save.
388 pages, ebook
Published November 18, 2025
1 person is currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Benfante
5 books15 followersKatherine Benfante writes science fiction with a twist of romance. She also teaches high school French classes. Katherine lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters, voracious readers all. Scattered is her debut novel. Please visit Katherine's website at www.katherinebenfante.com where you can sign up for her newsletter for exclusive extras about Scattered and her other books, release news, and more.
From Katherine's website:
"I think I was always meant to be an author. When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher, then an architect, then a racecar engineer. But after I wrote a mammoth 60-page novel for my 6th grade teacher’s simple ten-page writing assignment, I thought I might have a few more stories in me.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I graduated in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec (the most fun four years you could imagine … I recommend every teen consider attending McGill!). I walked the same halls Elie and William did, and yes: the western-facing windows on the Schulich library’s fourth floor was my favorite studying nook on campus. I moved back to the States and proudly worked as an engineer for the Army and Navy. But I never stopped writing. Even after a long day of part drawings and program management meetings, I made time to pound away at my keyboard.
After getting married and having two (wonderful!) daughters, I kept writing – both out of love for writing and to show my girls you can reach your dreams. These days I spend my time as a mother; substitute teaching French, engineering, and math classes; and writing even more stories. I live in New Jersey with my family, across the street from a lake overrun by swans and Canadian geese.
Fun Facts
- Like my dad, I graduated from Skip Barber Racing School and actually earned my race car driver license! Sadly, it has since expired. But I have the videotape to prove I did it.
- While working for the Army, I also earned my license to drive a tank! I drove an M1A2 Abrams and an M60, the latter of which I used to (purposely) crush a (junkyard) car in 2009 for a demonstration on Armed Forces Day. That’s also on video, and probably one of my life’s greatest moments.
- I once memorized 100 digits of π while bored during a week-long training session at work. Have I mentioned I love math?!
- I got a fortune cookie long ago that said, “You are a lover of words. One day you will write a book.” Maybe I should’ve played the lucky numbers on the flipside.
- Another of my greatest achievements is converting my daughters into Potterheads. I only wish I fit into my kids’ “I’d rather be at Hogwarts” t-shirts….."
From Katherine's website:
"I think I was always meant to be an author. When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher, then an architect, then a racecar engineer. But after I wrote a mammoth 60-page novel for my 6th grade teacher’s simple ten-page writing assignment, I thought I might have a few more stories in me.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I graduated in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec (the most fun four years you could imagine … I recommend every teen consider attending McGill!). I walked the same halls Elie and William did, and yes: the western-facing windows on the Schulich library’s fourth floor was my favorite studying nook on campus. I moved back to the States and proudly worked as an engineer for the Army and Navy. But I never stopped writing. Even after a long day of part drawings and program management meetings, I made time to pound away at my keyboard.
After getting married and having two (wonderful!) daughters, I kept writing – both out of love for writing and to show my girls you can reach your dreams. These days I spend my time as a mother; substitute teaching French, engineering, and math classes; and writing even more stories. I live in New Jersey with my family, across the street from a lake overrun by swans and Canadian geese.
Fun Facts
- Like my dad, I graduated from Skip Barber Racing School and actually earned my race car driver license! Sadly, it has since expired. But I have the videotape to prove I did it.
- While working for the Army, I also earned my license to drive a tank! I drove an M1A2 Abrams and an M60, the latter of which I used to (purposely) crush a (junkyard) car in 2009 for a demonstration on Armed Forces Day. That’s also on video, and probably one of my life’s greatest moments.
- I once memorized 100 digits of π while bored during a week-long training session at work. Have I mentioned I love math?!
- I got a fortune cookie long ago that said, “You are a lover of words. One day you will write a book.” Maybe I should’ve played the lucky numbers on the flipside.
- Another of my greatest achievements is converting my daughters into Potterheads. I only wish I fit into my kids’ “I’d rather be at Hogwarts” t-shirts….."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 4, 2026
Silent Y by Katherine Benfante presents an intriguing premise. By 2078, widespread male violence against women has prompted radical legal reforms: men and women are physically segregated by walls dividing cities into two. After some initial protest, women largely welcome the change and the safety it brings. Procreation is planned and managed artificially, and any interaction between the sexes is tightly controlled.
The novel follows Alex and Dart, scientists working in a segregated research facility. Their work focuses on improving understanding of how babies communicate their needs to parents — a goal that struck me as oddly redundant, given that such communication is something most parents learn instinctively within weeks. As the story progresses, the barriers between Alex and Dart — and between the two halves of society — begin to erode, revealing secrets about how this world is really governed.
While the core idea is a strong one, I found the execution of the gender divide deeply unconvincing. Violence against women and girls is a real and serious problem, but the solution proposed here feels implausibly extreme. The novel offers little engagement with alternatives such as education, improved policing, or harsher sentencing, and seems to assume that total segregation would be widely accepted.
More troublingly, the book underplays basic human instincts. Would people truly accept a world with no love, intimacy, or freely chosen relationships? History suggests otherwise. The drive for sex is so powerful. Humans have always found ways to connect despite laws and prohibitions, often at great personal risk. Yet in Silent Y, there is remarkably little resistance: beyond some low-level protest during the construction of the Washington DC wall, there is no sustained or passionate dissent. The author’s implication that people have given up having sex with people of the opposite sex because they can form an emotional bond with the AI, really didn’t come across as credible.
The lack of population pushback raises further questions the novel does not adequately address. If men have become so violent that segregation is deemed necessary, why do they accept these changes without serious conflict? And how could expectant mothers calmly accept that if they give birth to a boy, he will be taken from them and raised beyond the wall? Science fiction allows for bold speculation, but these are still human beings with recognisable emotions and attachments.
I found myself unable to set these questions aside while reading, and as a result I often lost my immersion in the story itself. For me, the world-building never felt emotionally or psychologically convincing enough to support the novel’s ambitions. Having said made all of those negative points, Silent Y is a well-paced conspiracy thriller, with a good mix of science background and unexpected plot twists. It’s well-written and carefully plotted out. The ideas is novel and I enjoyed seeing how the author mapped out the descent from a female utopia into darkness. All the way through there were hints of an intrusive surveillance society that almost mirrored 1984 and yet at no point did the assumed all-seeing, all-knowing state seem to take any action against transgressors, at least not until it was too late and this diminished the story.
This perhaps wasn’t really the book for me.
I read Silent Y as an ARC provided through LibraryThing Early Reviewers. All opinions are my own.
The novel follows Alex and Dart, scientists working in a segregated research facility. Their work focuses on improving understanding of how babies communicate their needs to parents — a goal that struck me as oddly redundant, given that such communication is something most parents learn instinctively within weeks. As the story progresses, the barriers between Alex and Dart — and between the two halves of society — begin to erode, revealing secrets about how this world is really governed.
While the core idea is a strong one, I found the execution of the gender divide deeply unconvincing. Violence against women and girls is a real and serious problem, but the solution proposed here feels implausibly extreme. The novel offers little engagement with alternatives such as education, improved policing, or harsher sentencing, and seems to assume that total segregation would be widely accepted.
More troublingly, the book underplays basic human instincts. Would people truly accept a world with no love, intimacy, or freely chosen relationships? History suggests otherwise. The drive for sex is so powerful. Humans have always found ways to connect despite laws and prohibitions, often at great personal risk. Yet in Silent Y, there is remarkably little resistance: beyond some low-level protest during the construction of the Washington DC wall, there is no sustained or passionate dissent. The author’s implication that people have given up having sex with people of the opposite sex because they can form an emotional bond with the AI, really didn’t come across as credible.
The lack of population pushback raises further questions the novel does not adequately address. If men have become so violent that segregation is deemed necessary, why do they accept these changes without serious conflict? And how could expectant mothers calmly accept that if they give birth to a boy, he will be taken from them and raised beyond the wall? Science fiction allows for bold speculation, but these are still human beings with recognisable emotions and attachments.
I found myself unable to set these questions aside while reading, and as a result I often lost my immersion in the story itself. For me, the world-building never felt emotionally or psychologically convincing enough to support the novel’s ambitions. Having said made all of those negative points, Silent Y is a well-paced conspiracy thriller, with a good mix of science background and unexpected plot twists. It’s well-written and carefully plotted out. The ideas is novel and I enjoyed seeing how the author mapped out the descent from a female utopia into darkness. All the way through there were hints of an intrusive surveillance society that almost mirrored 1984 and yet at no point did the assumed all-seeing, all-knowing state seem to take any action against transgressors, at least not until it was too late and this diminished the story.
This perhaps wasn’t really the book for me.
I read Silent Y as an ARC provided through LibraryThing Early Reviewers. All opinions are my own.
November 17, 2025
In a not so distant future, a concrete wall splits the world. Men and women are forced to live on separate sides, and all contact between the sexes is strictly forbidden. Procreation is a clinical matter of mandatory insemination handled by the Department of Reproduction. Deep down in the department’s sterile corridors on the female side, works a lab technician.
Dart is a brilliant scientist, but she also happens to be the daughter of the head of the department. Like so many mother-daughter relationships, theirs is a complicated one. So far, Dart has dealt with her mother, and life in general, by focussing on her work and keeping her head down. Then she is put on a new assignment that requires her to collaborate with a scientist from the male side.
Alex is handsome, funny and unlike anyone Dart has ever met before. When their research overturns established “truths”, everything she was taught and believed begins to unravel. Not knowing who or what to trust, Dart finds herself questioning loyalties, family bonds, and friendships. But behind the differing opinions and ignorance lurks something much more sinister, and Dart is faced with the hard choice of doing what’s easy, or doing what’s right.
The book opens in a safe utopia, but soon the superficial harmony becomes discordant. Benfante shows us what is in fact a miserable existence where every move, every feeling, is controlled by the State. A life where values and morals are government mandated — and inflicted. Tension is turned up notch after notch, and I found myself flying through the pages with bated breath, wondering what will shatter when.
This is a David and Goliath story that takes you on a wild ride to disturbing yet entirely plausible futures, painting a stark picture of what may lie ahead. It’s a cautionary tale, but it never becomes preachy, rather it shows us that it is our inherent humanity that will save us in the end. That nature won’t be stopped and that love grows in the cracks of bigotry.
For lovers of the Handmaid’s Tale, Silent Y is an imaginative story that is wholly Benfante’s own.
Alex is handsome, funny and unlike anyone Dart has ever met before. When their research overturns established “truths”, everything she was taught and believed begins to unravel. Not knowing who or what to trust, Dart finds herself questioning loyalties, family bonds, and friendships. But behind the differing opinions and ignorance lurks something much more sinister, and Dart is faced with the hard choice of doing what’s easy, or doing what’s right.
The book opens in a safe utopia, but soon the superficial harmony becomes discordant. Benfante shows us what is in fact a miserable existence where every move, every feeling, is controlled by the State. A life where values and morals are government mandated — and inflicted. Tension is turned up notch after notch, and I found myself flying through the pages with bated breath, wondering what will shatter when.
This is a David and Goliath story that takes you on a wild ride to disturbing yet entirely plausible futures, painting a stark picture of what may lie ahead. It’s a cautionary tale, but it never becomes preachy, rather it shows us that it is our inherent humanity that will save us in the end. That nature won’t be stopped and that love grows in the cracks of bigotry.
For lovers of the Handmaid’s Tale, Silent Y is an imaginative story that is wholly Benfante’s own.
January 10, 2026
What starts as a story of how the genders were separated for women's safety from "violent men" soon turns into a dystopian thriller, a battle of the sexes.
Dart is a scientist who is thrown into a situation were she has to work with men, that she has been conditioned to hate. She soon falls for her male scientist counterpart, Alex, and so starts a forbidden affair.
While this is happening she uncovers a plot, some women in high positions of the government have found a way to sway reproduction in their favour, producing more female embryos than males and are slowly phasing the birth of boys.
This is a very fast paced book, jam packed with drama and excitement. I was hooked. I found the storyline very believable, with the state of the world and humanity today we do seem to be going backwards in terms of equality.
This book to me shows to me that equality is important, we are all human together and should act as such.
Dart is a scientist who is thrown into a situation were she has to work with men, that she has been conditioned to hate. She soon falls for her male scientist counterpart, Alex, and so starts a forbidden affair.
While this is happening she uncovers a plot, some women in high positions of the government have found a way to sway reproduction in their favour, producing more female embryos than males and are slowly phasing the birth of boys.
This is a very fast paced book, jam packed with drama and excitement. I was hooked. I found the storyline very believable, with the state of the world and humanity today we do seem to be going backwards in terms of equality.
This book to me shows to me that equality is important, we are all human together and should act as such.
October 27, 2025
In the future, people of the world have largely concluded that women and men cannot live, school, or work together harmoniously. Enter the Separation Laws!
Benfante's tale explores some of the consequences of that, in labor and reproduction. Inevitably, conspiracies arise and secrets unfold. I was reminded favorably of Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang.
I enjoyed the telling and I would love to read more of both how this world came to be and what comes later!
NOTE: I read an ARC of this novel, provided by the author, but that has not influenced my opinion.
Benfante's tale explores some of the consequences of that, in labor and reproduction. Inevitably, conspiracies arise and secrets unfold. I was reminded favorably of Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang.
I enjoyed the telling and I would love to read more of both how this world came to be and what comes later!
NOTE: I read an ARC of this novel, provided by the author, but that has not influenced my opinion.
October 30, 2025
Loved reading an advanced copy especially after reading Katherine's Scattered.
Silent Y is eerily reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale and Gilead ...
I was swept away in Katherine's thought experiment that seems SO absurd, yet reveals elements that brush (sometimes too closely) with undercurrents in today’s world.
Silent Y is eerily reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale and Gilead ...
I was swept away in Katherine's thought experiment that seems SO absurd, yet reveals elements that brush (sometimes too closely) with undercurrents in today’s world.
December 9, 2025
This books is amazing! As both a sci-fi fan AND a female executive I truly enjoyed this look at a future world where women and men live separately due to past conflicts. The book does a masterful job setting up the scenario and showing the dangers in a world where men and women continue to drift apart! Highly recommend this important read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews