The Blurb:
A lifetime together.
Six months of silence.
One last chance.
By all appearances, Frank and Maggie share a happy, loving marriage. But for the past six months, they have not spoken. Not a sentence, not a single word. Maggie isn’t sure what, exactly, provoked Frank’s silence, though she has a few ideas.
Day after day, they have eaten meals together and slept in the same bed in an increasingly uncomfortable silence that has become, for Maggie, deafening.
Then Frank finds Maggie collapsed in the kitchen, unconscious, an empty package of sleeping pills on the table. Rushed to the hospital, she is placed in a medically induced coma while the doctors assess the damage.
If she regains consciousness, Maggie may never be the same. Though he is overwhelmed at the thought of losing his wife, will Frank be able to find his voice once again—and explain his withdrawal—or is it too late?
My Rating: ★★★★
My Review:
The Silent Treatment is a truly emotional read and one that felt a little too close to home in a lot of ways.
It is easy to see myself in Maggie and my husband in Frank….having gone through similar trials and tribulations; having similar personality traits and emotional states. I won’t go into that lest I reveal too much…. suffice to say the characters feel completely authentic; their responses to life’s hardships, to love, loss and grief felt so real…dredging up some things I would much rather leave where they are.
Dredging aside, I enjoyed this novel. Yes there were tears…and a pile of tissues on the couch…..but the writing is beautifully languorous…slowly winding the reader through the hearts and minds of the characters and building a solid foundation of care and empathy towards them.
Told first from Frank’s point of view, then by Maggie’s through a series of letters/diary entries to Frank, The Silent Treatment is a love story 40 years in the making. A portrait of the way love, lies, guilt, grief and loss can shape a relationship and an expression of true unconditional love.
With thanks to the publisher via NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected publication April 2020.
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