The Whispers

The Whispers a slow-burn domestic drama that focuses on the lives, secrets and lies of four suburban women. The story has a Desperate Housewives feel with its family dysfunction, a mysterious incident, issues about motherhood, and the roles of today's women. 

The story pivots around a mystery that begins during a neighbourhood party.  Whitney Loverly is the mom that seems to have it all, but during the party she's hosting, she is heard viciously screaming at her 10-year-old son Xavier by her guests. Hours later, Xavier is found severely injured under his third story window and rushed to the hospital. Through the eyes of Whitney, Blair, Rebecca and Mara, readers witness the secrets, dysfunction and despair within their lives and slowly the picture of what really happened that fateful night when Xavier was hurt comes to light.

There's a lot going on and for the most part it works. The characters are generally an unlikeable but interesting bunch, and the tension remains high, but readers will have to suspend disbelief in a few places. There is a large cast and I found it sometimes difficult to differentiate between some characters (I ended up making myself a character list to keep things straight).

The mystery kept me intrigued but it was how Audrain compassionately weaves important social issues facing women that make this book stand out. We are privy to their hardships, doubts, feelings of invisibility and heart-wrenching losses that I believe is relatable to many of today's women, moms and women who desperately want to be moms. Audrain does not hold back on her vivid descriptions of the emotional, psychological and physical toll women face. The descriptions are so well-written that I advise readers who may be sensitive, particularly to those who have suffered miscarriage to be aware that these issues are prevalent throughout the story.   

The Whispers is an intense, emotionally raw, sometimes uncomfortable domestic drama that will provide excellent discussion and will leave readers with an ending that will have them gasping.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Viking Books for the complimentary copy which was provided in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Ashley Audrain

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Type and Source: eBook from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Viking (Penguin Random House Canada)

First Published: June 6, 2023

Book Description from GoodReads: One morning on Harlow Lane, four families' lives are changed forever.

Whitney Loverly can only sit by her son's hospital bed after he falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. She refuses to speak to anyone.

Back at home, the Loverlys' neighbours must reckon with their own roles in the tragedy - their selfless best friends who live across the street, the ambitious Goldsteins who desperately want a family of their own, and the quiet elderly couple who spend their days people watching on the front porch.

But what happens next, when over the course of a week, the hidden and explosive truths that connect these families must come out?

Exploring envy, motherhood and the intuitions that we silence, this is a novel that asks what happens when good people make bad choices.