Blog Tour: Silent Winter by Maggie James

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

No sound. No light. No hope.
On an icy November night, Drew Blackmore is beaten unconscious and abducted. He wakes to find himself in total darkness, naked and chained to the floor.
Fed just enough to keep him alive, Drew is unable to identify his captor, or the reason for his incarceration. As reality fades, hallucinations take over. Can Drew escape his prison before madness claims him?
Meanwhile, Drew's wife, Holly, despairing of ever seeing him again, turns to his brother for comfort. As dark family secrets come to light, Holly wonders whether she ever really knew her husband. Could his disappearance be connected with that of a prostitute years before?
A story of how the mind responds to solitary confinement, 'Silent Winter' examines one man's race against time to survive hell.

Thank you to Sarah @ Book On The Brightside book tours for my spot on the blog tour.

Usually reviewers find it extremely hard to review a book that they truly love…This is especially true for Silent Winter.  This book in essence is summed up by the phrase the sins of the father.  Silence is dangerous, silence is deadly, and silence can be a weapon. 

The first chapter ensured that I kept reading.  As far as a bookworm is concerned it was crack.  I was addicted, I was focussed, and I knew I was in for the long haul.  Maggie James kept me searching for that next hit.  I was weak, and I wanted more.  My head was buzzing with all the possibilities.  The storyline was threatening, dangerous with more than a subtle hint evil running at its epicentre.  The author had weaved a compulsive tale of survival in a bleak world…who can we trust?  The images that Maggie James left her poor reader to conjure in their head was hell.  My imagination was red hot, overused and turned to scrambled eggs.  This is the type of novel that has you looking over your shoulder twice, three times in the dark to ensure you aren’t in danger.  I loved the POV of the perpetrator.  Seeing the ruined and disturbed mind of a psychopath was a threatening shadow just in the corner of your mind.  Maggie James blindfolded you and threw you into the boot of her car…don’t expect to escape unscathed! 

The strongest protagonist in this story was for sure Drew’s wife, Holly.  What a woman she is!  She initially fears her husband has been unfaithful.  Soon that anger turns to panic when her husband fails to turn up for work the next day.  Is he lying in a ditch somewhere inebriated?  Has he had a car accident?  The worst thought of all doesn’t fail to creep into her mind…he couldn’t be dead, could he?  I warmed to her immediately.  Regret at their last words thrown in anger.  His reluctance to start a family and her deep-seated need to become a mother.  She seeks reassurance in Todd, Drew’s older brother.  Both agree to go to police and report him missing and pray in the mean time he might just turn up with a good story to tell.  They swim troubled waters together, taking comfort in each other’s misery.  Maggie James has the correct balance in her narrative.  Holly becomes lost in her fear not quite knowing which way to move forward,  money troubles without Drew , blasts from the past and the fear and loathing emitting from Drew’s captivity.  Holly kept it all relatively together whilst also harbouring a secret of her own. 

I read this book in two sittings (it would have been one but parenting and life prevented me from inhaling it) from the first page to the last I could feel myself being sucked into the story, like a fly on the wall watching it in real time.  It was fast paced, a real page turner.  I would love to see this as a film – listen up Netflix! Can you imagine being kept in pure darkness for an unsurmountable amount of time?  Can you only imagine being dehumanised for someone’s amusement?  Can you imagine the mental toll that would have on the brain?  Maggie James examines one man’s struggle to survive, walking on the tight rope of sanity and she does it with such raw intensity.  It was compulsive. 

Silent Winter just drips with superior prose.  This is a heartbreakingly perfect thriller.  Addictively compulsive.  Add this to your TBR immediately. 

Maggie James is a British author who lives near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She writes psychological suspense novels.

Before turning her hand to writing, Maggie worked mainly as an accountant, with a diversion into practising as a nutritional therapist. Diet and health remain high on her list of interests, along with travel. Accountancy does not, but then it never did. The urge to pack a bag and go off travelling is always lurking in the background! When not writing, going to the gym, practising yoga or travelling, Maggie can be found seeking new four-legged friends to pet; animals are a lifelong love!