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Hush
Lily Emmett has suffered from selective mutism since childhood and still struggles to see the value of everyday speech. Her sister, Connie, has always spoken for her, and her partner, Richard, has learnt to translate her movements so that they share a unique form of communication.
When the two sisters return to their childhood home after their mother's death, the visit inspires memories of the event that first rendered Lily silent, and still haunts them both. The search for the truth about what happened takes them back to a childhood shaped by bullying and familial breakdown, and unearths the secrets that lie at the heart of the sisters' relationship.
Haunting, mysterious and often shocking, Hush is the story of what happens when we find we cannot speak, even to those we love most.
When the two sisters return to their childhood home after their mother's death, the visit inspires memories of the event that first rendered Lily silent, and still haunts them both. The search for the truth about what happened takes them back to a childhood shaped by bullying and familial breakdown, and unearths the secrets that lie at the heart of the sisters' relationship.
Haunting, mysterious and often shocking, Hush is the story of what happens when we find we cannot speak, even to those we love most.
- GenresFiction
435 pages, Paperback
First published June 25, 2015
3 people are currently reading
337 people want to read
About the author
Sara Marshall-Ball
2 books8 followersI’m a novelist masquerading as an insurance claims assessor. My debut novel Hush was published by Myriad Editions in June 2015. I have an MA in Creative & Critical Writing from the University of Sussex, and I currently live in Brighton.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 12, 2015
No other reviews yet, I notice - and sometimes it's rather good to feel you've discovered something a little special that you can tell others about.
I usually read pretty quickly, but this really isn't a book to be rushed - it's taken me a couple of days to read, and that's an indication that this is a book to be savoured. It deals with what appears an unfamiliar subject in selective mutism as the result of a trauma, but it also has among its themes the more familiar ones of families and the secrets they keep, bullying and its consequences, nature and nurture, relationships and their many differing problems, and the healing power of love.
The story is told in alternating chapters. "Then" takes us back to Lily and Connie's childhood and the unspoken trauma that sees Lily unable or unwilling to speak, sent to live with her grandparents, shunted around medical professionals who fail to protect or help her. Connie meanwhile battles on - victimised brutally by her schoolmates because of her perceived wrongdoing, ignored by her cold mother, separated from her sister. "Now" takes us to the present day - Lily and Connie in adulthood, their relationships, their states of mind, their feelings towards their parents, their families, each other.
If it's not sounding particularly attractive from all that, I have to say it was a really compelling read with a disturbing edge of darkness. It was also quite beautifully written - poetic, emotionally authentic, with beautiful descriptions, and relationships described with absolute perfection. The relationship between Lily and Richard is mesmerising, the kind of love we should all experience - he even tells Lily bedtime stories, thoroughly beautiful ones that will break your heart.
I really enjoyed this book - never simply a love story or a coming-of-age tale, certainly not the "beach read" of its marketing (sorry Myriad!) and not a thriller in any conventional sense, but a book I'm delighted I had the opportunity to read.
My thanks to publishers Myriad Editions for my paperback copy.
I usually read pretty quickly, but this really isn't a book to be rushed - it's taken me a couple of days to read, and that's an indication that this is a book to be savoured. It deals with what appears an unfamiliar subject in selective mutism as the result of a trauma, but it also has among its themes the more familiar ones of families and the secrets they keep, bullying and its consequences, nature and nurture, relationships and their many differing problems, and the healing power of love.
The story is told in alternating chapters. "Then" takes us back to Lily and Connie's childhood and the unspoken trauma that sees Lily unable or unwilling to speak, sent to live with her grandparents, shunted around medical professionals who fail to protect or help her. Connie meanwhile battles on - victimised brutally by her schoolmates because of her perceived wrongdoing, ignored by her cold mother, separated from her sister. "Now" takes us to the present day - Lily and Connie in adulthood, their relationships, their states of mind, their feelings towards their parents, their families, each other.
If it's not sounding particularly attractive from all that, I have to say it was a really compelling read with a disturbing edge of darkness. It was also quite beautifully written - poetic, emotionally authentic, with beautiful descriptions, and relationships described with absolute perfection. The relationship between Lily and Richard is mesmerising, the kind of love we should all experience - he even tells Lily bedtime stories, thoroughly beautiful ones that will break your heart.
I really enjoyed this book - never simply a love story or a coming-of-age tale, certainly not the "beach read" of its marketing (sorry Myriad!) and not a thriller in any conventional sense, but a book I'm delighted I had the opportunity to read.
My thanks to publishers Myriad Editions for my paperback copy.
April 27, 2016
Interesting story line that didn't end in reality. After 20 some years, a woman has been mostly non-talkative, and you find out her sister didn't tell her that their mother was having an affair? That's the reason she stopped talking? That's the reason the friend died? Because the boy caught his dad and the girls' mother together in the dark in the wood? Really??? The older sister endured years of abuse at school and absolutely no-one figured out that the parents where having an affair?? Unbelievable and very odd boring conclusion to an otherwise interesting story. The oddest part of the story is that the younger sister didn't really "see" anything; it is the older sister who saw her mother and Billy's father together, and she actually stumbled over Billy. It would make more sense that the older sister was the most traumatized.
July 8, 2015
Two young girls are bullied mercilessly at school for their involvement in their friend Billy's death. The younger of the two, Lily, just eight years old, refuses to speak.
The narrative alternates between slim sections, simply entitled 'now' and 'then,' that take the reader on a journey, similar to Lily's own, as she struggles to piece together a picture, from disparate fragments, of what happened in the woods that night.
I felt teased throughout by the sinister undercurrent that might become dominant at any point. And the use of language is delightful.
The clues that emerged towards the end were quite thrilling as my mind raced in an attempt to beat the author to the ultimate revelation, a denouement that was both surprising and satisfying.
The narrative alternates between slim sections, simply entitled 'now' and 'then,' that take the reader on a journey, similar to Lily's own, as she struggles to piece together a picture, from disparate fragments, of what happened in the woods that night.
I felt teased throughout by the sinister undercurrent that might become dominant at any point. And the use of language is delightful.
The clues that emerged towards the end were quite thrilling as my mind raced in an attempt to beat the author to the ultimate revelation, a denouement that was both surprising and satisfying.
July 18, 2015
This atmospheric literary suspense novel heralds the arrival of a major new literary voice Sarah Marshall-Ball. Hush is a gripping exploration of the effects of childhood trauma on adult sisters. It is also a finely wrought and powerful mediation on language and story telling, showing how, in all the noise of contemporary urban lives, silence can sometimes be the best form of rebellion. A marvellous debut, that is haunting and unsettling. Hush is the story of what happens when we cannot speak, even to those we love most.
July 11, 2015
I adored this book. It was a topic that I had been interested in for a while but had never picked up because all the other books on the topic had really bad ratings about fetishising the subject. While I had a few problems with this it handled the topic extremely well, and I ADORED most of the characters. Even if I did guess everything before it happened.
May 30, 2018
Pretty good book with an intriguing topic at its heart (selective mutism), especially for someone like myself who is interested in mental illness. However despite the fact that I enjoyed this, it was very slow moving, and I feel that the climax of the novel happened in the last 20 pages - in other words, instead of being a slow, over 400 page book, I think the novel could have been better portrayed through a smaller, faster paced version by cutting out all of the pointless scenes etc that added nothing to the overall story.
August 16, 2022
A book I couldn't engage with unfortunately. I felt no empathy towards the characters. Clichéd descriptions, '..... glow of the moon....cast odd, silvery shadows across the room'. The book built to a climax which was a big let down for me considering how you were being expected throughout the book to connect to these characters through their shared, tormented past. Just not for me.
July 13, 2017
Not amazing nor awful. Somewhere in the middle. I wanted to find out what would happen next but I wasn't overly invested in the characters.
September 3, 2017
i won this book on the Goodreads giveaway. i found this book very interesting.
July 13, 2020
The story is overlong, a couple of age mistakes and others - slightly irritating to me as a pedant . But a good storyline and engaging take.
February 22, 2017
Sara Marshall-Ball's way with characters is certainly undeniable. Her women in particular are evocatively drawn, and there is a real lived-in quality to the relationship between leading sisters Connie and Lilly - torn apart and then thrown together, over and over, by a succession of childhood traumas. Also compelling is the relationship that Lilly builds with her partner Richard, which - due to Lilly's voluntary mutism - has evolved largely without the use of words. We so often think of good relationships as being "about communication", so it was intriguing to see the portrait of a loving couple who (largely) do not speak.
However, whilst the skill of the craft is clear, the spine of Hush's story feels undeniably thin. The book is constructed like a mystery, dancing around the question of just *what* happened to its protagonists all those years ago for 400+ of its 430 pages. Yet the answer - when it comes - feels very lacking.
I would have been much more satisfied, I think, if the book had dispensed with the trappings of a mystery or ghost story (visions in a winter garden at night; family secrets about which no one ever speaks), and admitted that it was a sprawling, character-focused family saga, and that it didn't need some a spectacular plot revelation in order to come to a poignant and emotional conclusion.
However, whilst the skill of the craft is clear, the spine of Hush's story feels undeniably thin. The book is constructed like a mystery, dancing around the question of just *what* happened to its protagonists all those years ago for 400+ of its 430 pages. Yet the answer - when it comes - feels very lacking.
I would have been much more satisfied, I think, if the book had dispensed with the trappings of a mystery or ghost story (visions in a winter garden at night; family secrets about which no one ever speaks), and admitted that it was a sprawling, character-focused family saga, and that it didn't need some a spectacular plot revelation in order to come to a poignant and emotional conclusion.
July 26, 2015
First-reads review. When I first read the blurb of this book I presumed that this would be a psychological thriller. Unfortunately it was less of a thriller than I imagined which was a slight disappointment. Despite this I enjoyed the building tension and mystery behind the cause of the select muteness in Lily. I also enjoyed that the chapters alternated between then and now as it allowed the story to build up without the characters having to explain through the situations you actually lived through them. Overall this book is interesting but not what I expected I would not read it again.
April 26, 2016
A gripping and psychologically astute story of bullying and family breakdown and the damaging impact of secrets on developing identities …
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Full review http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post/...
February 19, 2016
really quite excellent.
July 9, 2016
Absolutely stunning. Beautiful characters, wonderful narrative and very easy to follow as "now" and "then" always switch. Never two of the same in a row.
January 9, 2016
A whole lot of build-up for a very boring resolution with lots of rambling storytelling in between. Very disappointed.
January 11, 2016
Suspense-filled and very engaging story with effective use of "now" and "then". Well-drawn characters and story line.
July 7, 2015
A compulsive and brilliantly crafted read
November 11, 2015
Read for Novelicious - review to follow.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews