Thank you Atria Books for my Netgalley copy of THE SILENCE IN HER EYES by Armando Lucas Correa, out 1/30/24!

For fans of Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware, this is a psychological thriller about a woman with a rare neurological condition who is convinced her neighbor is going to be murdered.

Leah has been living with akinetopsia, or motion blindness, since she was a child. For the last twenty years, she hasn’t been able to see movement. As she walks around her upper Manhattan neighborhood with her white stick tapping in front, most people assume she’s blind. But the truth is Leah sees a good deal, and with her acute senses of smell and hearing, very little escapes her notice.

She has a quiet, orderly life, with little human contact beyond her longtime housekeeper, her doctor, and her elderly neighbor. That all changes when Alice moves into the apartment next door and Leah can immediately smell the anxiety wafting off her. Worse, Leah can’t help but hear Alice and a late-night visitor engage in a violent fight. Worried, she befriends her neighbor and discovers that Alice is in the middle of a messy divorce from an abusive husband.

Then one night, Leah wakes up to someone in her apartment. She blacks out and in the morning is left wondering if she dreamt the episode. And yet the scent of the intruder follows her everywhere. And when she hears Alice through the wall pleading for her help, Leah makes a decision that will test her courage, her strength, and ultimately her sanity.

The writing is very up-front, direct and succinct. I like that every now and then, and this one surprised me with its twists. Definitely for fans of unreliable narrators, this book will keep you on your toes. I was pretty annoyed of the word “bergamot” by the end (iykyk) and I think her condition was explained very reptatively, but for the most part, I was engaged and intrigued to see where it went.

It goes off the rails at the end - it’s perfect for a good popcorn thriller you can read in one sitting when you have the time.

I was given this book by NetGalley for an honest review-
Leah has had motion blindness for 20 years. Even tho she struggles with sight she can hear smell much.
She leads a very quiet life until Alice moves into the apartment next door. They begin doing things together and Leah feels like they are becoming friends. But are they really? Leah is worried about the noises coming from Alice apartment. Is her .husband abusing her.? Leah’s housekeeper warns her to stay out of Alice’s business but can she?
Does she really know what is going on behind closed doors?

This book will definitely be loved by a lot of people, so I'm bummed to admit it's not a fit for me.

The premise is so unique and interesting, which is a feat in itself, given how crowded the thriller market is. However, the description likened it to Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware, both who are known for their suspenseful writing, so that was what I expected with The Silence in Her Eyes. While the writing was beautiful, it lacked that pacing and tautness I wanted. After being introduced to the first mysterious (and, arguably, very jarring) incident, it's almost as if nothing happened.

Unfortunately, this became a DNF for me, but I do strongly believe this is going to be a successful book with the right audience.

The Silence in Her Eyes
As the result of a head injury when she was eight years old, Leah has akinetopsia or motion blindness. Although doctors felt it may not be permanent, Leah is now 28 and has had no improvement. Her mother has recently passed away and she has a quiet life filled with books and a limited number of people she’s mostly known all of her life. She has a long time housekeeper and two older women who are neighbors in her apartment building. There’s also a caretaker of the building, the delivery guy, Dr. Allen and Mark at the bookstore she knows superficially. When a young woman moves in next door, Leah hears her arguing with someone and crying. Leah has also woken up in the middle of the night with the sense of someone being in her room leaving a masculine smell of bergamot behind.

The suspense of the novel is in how Leah is piecing together a situation with her new neighbor Alice. She feels Alice is in danger from an abusive ex husband and Leah wants to protect her. Seeing things in only snapshots and relying on other senses and feelings makes it difficult to know if our narrator is reliable. The writing is beautiful and I was invested from the start. I did feel it went off the rails towards the end with a lot of twists and became very far fetched. Those who love super twisty popcorn thrillers will love this one. Although that is usually not my favorite kind of thriller, I devoured this in one day, because I needed to see where the story was going.

The Silence In Her Eyes is a fast moving thriller.

Leah is a woman living with a neurological eye disorder, akinetopsia. She can see movement but can't see well. She has a heightened sense of hearing and smell. She lives alone in an apt with very little contact with others. Until a new neighbor, Alice, moves in next door.

Leah hears violent fights next door. one evening someone comes into her apartment and drugs her - she falls into a blackout. She wonders if it happened but she smells the intruder and feels the danger. When she hears Alice begging for her life it is time for Leah to do something.

This book captivated me from the beginning and I read it as fast as I could.

Enjoy

The scent of bergamot haunts this woman with her rare neurological disorder. She is unable to see motion and only sees images like a photograph - life as a still picture. She must blink in order to see the image that follows next. The problem could possibly reverse itself over time. This is part of the suspense of the novel.

Leah lives alone as her parents have died, and she has only caring but elderly neighbors who look in on her regularly. Her new neighbor Alice is threatened by her estranged husband, a very wealthy but abusive man. and Leah can her the abuse through the walls of her apartment. She sets out to protect Alice in any way she can and prevent her from being murdered.

Leah is an unreliable narrator as what she senses and experiences is sometimes questionable, and even she questions all of her reality as she lives it. What is true and what is not is another part of the suspense.

I was surprised by the ending though not shocked. It seemed plausible, what happens. what has happened to Leah, and who she really is. I thought of this book as a noir suspense.

An unusual and impressive plot.