When We Were Silent

Louise is one of the few scholarship students in the late 1980s at Highfield Manor, a distinguished private Dublin school. When her best friend dies by suicide, she is determined to expose her friend’s abuser, a teacher and coach at the school. Debut author McPhillips alternates between the point of view of teenage Lou and the present time when she’s happily married and has a teenage daughter. Lou has tried to put the trauma from Highfield behind her, but a school friend’s brother needs her to testify in court about Highfield’s history of hiding abuse. Now Lou must confront her past to discover if her years of punishment were justified for what really happened on her last day at Highfield. In her audiobook debut, narrator India Mullen portrays young Lou with the appropriate level of teenage angst, while adult Lou’s tone is more reflective and mature. Her Dublin lilt can be soothing, but it takes on an unsettling edge during the suspenseful moments.