The Bay of Silence

It all appears innocent enough: a handsome couple in their thirties - she

an actress, he a successful graphic designer - revisiting Sestri Levante

on the Italian Riviera where they once spent their honeymoon. But it is

not at all innocent. The couple have been driven here by paranoia - by a

slow dread of what will happen to the two of them and to their daughters

if anyone finds out about their baby Amadeo, whose identity, and even

whose existence, is at the heart of the schizophrenic illness from which

Rosalind has long suffered. Two people hiding the world from each other,

Rosalind and William cannot escape the chilling truth that lies at the

centre of Lisa St Aubin de Terán's compelling novel.

The resort of Sestri Levante has twin, Janus-facing bays: one which Hans

Christian Andersen called the Bay of Fairytales and another which

the local people have long called the Bay of Silence. It is to the Bay of

Silence that Rosalind now retraces her steps - to the spot where she first

encountered the exotic golden stranger Angelo who was to play such a

seductive and haunting role on her honeymoon and in her marriage.

Both she and her husband independently try to make sense of the tragic

events which have engulfed their lives. They each try to analyse the

pressure placed on their marriage - which has allowed distressing events

to be forgotten and self-delusion to herald the unthinkable.

In her fourth novel, Lisa St Aubin de Terán creates an atmosphere which

is profoundly unsettling. She weaves an escalating story of tension and

human drama, combining the depth of character alaysis which was so

admired in The Tiger, with a striking new sense of pace and menace.