In the Quiet

by Eliza Henry Jones

Ebook, 2015

Status

Available

Collection

Description

A moving, sweet and uplifting novel of love, grief and the heartache of letting go, from a wonderful new Australian author. Cate Carlton has recently died, yet she is able to linger on, watching her three young children and her husband as they come to terms with their life without her on their rural horse property. As the months pass and her children grow, they cope in different ways, drawn closer and pulled apart by their shared loss. And all Cate can do is watch on helplessly, seeing their grief, how much they miss her and how - heartbreakingly - they begin to heal. Gradually unfolding to reveal Cate's life, her marriage, and the unhappy secret she shared with one of her children, In the Quiet is compelling, simple, tender, true - heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.… (more)

Publication

HarperCollins (2015), 272 pages

Awards

New South Wales Premier's Literary Award (Shortlist — 2016)

Genres

General Fiction

Fiction

Rating

½ (8 ratings; 3.9)

User reviews

LibraryThing member oldblack

I am not any sort of expert in these matters, and this may be a rather patronizing thing to say, but it seems to me that this is a remarkably good piece of work from a very young author. The way Ms Henry-Jones has chosen to tell this story, with multiple perspectives and continual jumps backwards

and forwards in time, runs a grave risk of confusing the reader or at least hiding the story beneath the complexity of the story-telling. But Henry-Jones maters the technique beautifully. That said, I need to mention that any story which is told in the voice of a dead person, "looking down from heaven" as it were, can never get five stars from me. But that's my limitation, not hers.

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LibraryThing member mjlivi

A nicely constructed novel, about grief, recovery and family. I wasn't that into the overarching conceit of the book, in which Cate, who has died, watches over her family and friends, and I could have done with a lot less of the horses, but this is otherwise a pretty impressive debut.

LibraryThing member Beamis12

The second book in as many months that I have read narrated by a woman, a mother, a wife, that has passed on to the great beyond. Would probably have passed on this if my good friend, Angela hadn't given this five stars. Which would have been a shame because this was simply a beautiful story.

Cate,

not yet forty, has died, she doesn't remember how and hopes to find out as she watches her family try to come to terms with her death. She is able to see certain things, she has no control over what, or when. Time skips and jumps and in between we learn her back story and that of her family. Jesse, Rafferty, and Cameron, her children, her sister Bea, her friend Laura and her husband, all grieve in different ways, one has a big secret that is eating at him, and one feels responsible for her death.

Although there are moments of sadness this is a life affirming book, how they learn to go on wonderfully portrayed. Such great characters, I cared about each of them immensely. A quiet, meditative story, I appreciated the gentle way this story was rendered, with compassion and love. A sentimental story for sure but not written in a maudlin or dramatic way. The different ways they grieve but come together as a family, not without difficulties, but a new way to see their family as a whole. As I said, simply beautiful and touching.

ARC from publisher.