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Please.

It’s taking me an appalling long time to write this review, possibly because I’ve found it difficult to express how I feel about this book. After several failed attempts to get it onto paper in an orderly fashion, I have decided to just splurge and see where that goes. Before I begin, it’s important that I give you some context to my feelings: I have an aversion to unplanned sequels. In my experience they tend to spoil the ending of the previous book, usually because there’s been no room left for plot or character growth. As such, we often have characters just falling back into old habits (like they didn’t just spend a whole book getting over them), and undermining their own happiness in order to create a forced drama. This infuriates me. There have been plenty of books where I haven’t touched the sequel, simply because frankly—I don’t want to know. If it ended happy, let’em be happy. Right—now that I’ve got that off my chest, you can now understand the magnitude of what I mean when I say that I loved I Am the Silence. And I mean—I loved it. From the moment I started, I could barely put it down. Whilst the first book was planned as a stand-alone, Ironside left plenty of room for growth and development in world and her characters, all of whom are complex and endearing. I was sucked straight back into Emlynn’s life and was pleased to discover a new side to the heroine we had left in I Belong to the Earth. Gone is the frightened young woman who wanted nothing to do with the supernatural. This Emlynn is now in the full-swing of her new occupation. Confident, with a renewed (if still, a little strained) relationship with her family, Emlynn is practically throwing herself into danger. Which is fine, until she gets in too deep. Heading back to Dorset to take part in a music festival, Emlynn reconnects with her old childhood friend Beth, only to discover Beth has…changed. Now Emlynn is up against something she’s never faced, and she’s more alone than ever. Big Black Dogs, terrifying new villains and a dark, ancient magic – this book has got everything. What really sells it to me, however, is how Ironside couples the supernatural with the stark realities of life, which she writes with refreshing originality and perception. For me, it was as if she was drawing on actual events in my life—though I hasten to add, nothing of my life actually resembles the events in this book! Frustration, loneliness, excitement, grief, the cold feeling of reuniting with someone you used to love and no longer recognising them – Ironside understands and writes emotions beautiful. Nothing is ever over-dramatic or undersold. These are characters with personality, faults and virtues, so real they could be the people we pass on the streets. The people we know. They could even be us. So, in short – how would I review I Am the Silence? Utterly engrossing. Totally unique. A brilliant addition to the series.

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