Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Even good people do bad things…”

I’ve followed Liv for what seems like forever, so why the hell am I only just reading her books?! I don’t have an answer to that other than because I am so very stupid, but I’ve just found one of my favourite books of the year in the form of Silent Waters! Liv is such an incredibly talented writer who, quite obviously, writes the exact books I love to read. Silent Waters is such a cleverly plotted thriller that I absolutely devoured. I’m still sat in awe just writing this! I loved every single word and I’m so happy to be sharing my review!

About the book

Is blood thicker than water?

At 5am one summer’s morning, police diver Jen Harper wakes to find herself submerged in the silt of a river with no memory of how she got there.

Forty-eight hours later, she’s called to dive in the same river in search of a missing woman, Claudia Franklin.

But for Jen, this is no ordinary job. Her and Claudia’s families were entangled for decades – there is unresolved resentment between them, unspoken secrets.

Jen hasn’t seen Claudia for twelve years now. Or has she?

The beginning

Oh, what a premise! I fell in love with this book from the first chapter and from then on it became almost painful to put it down. Jen Harper is a police diver (epic job, or what?!) so she’s used to plunging deep below the depths to find evidence of a crime, or – God forbid – a body. But when she wakes up early one morning in a river after one of her regular sleepwalking spells, she doesn’t expect to be called back 48 hours later when a woman is reported missing. And it’s not just any woman. It’s Claudia Franklin, and they have history. Learning about Jen’s life was just wonderful. She has a brother, Bill, who isn’t great with money but has always been there for her. There’s also little Sam, her son, who she’s brought up alone, with Bill being a huge fatherly figure in his life. The detail in these character introductions was just so brilliant, and I felt so attached to them already. The different perspectives – from Jen and Bill – show us the complex connections they have with Claudia. And I felt curious about everything here.

“God, it’s all such a mess. He took a leap, he thinks, and it was for love, but love makes people do stupid things.”

There are a couple of other crucial characters I should point out – Mark, Claudia’s husband, and Kerry, who has been a great friend to both Jen and Bill over the years. The history of all these characters runs deep and has been written with such meticulous care. I guarantee you will love the complexity of it! We get hints about big events in the past, the reasons why Jen failed to declare her connection to the person she’s helping to find. Both Jen and Bill have their secrets, and as we only get little hints about some of these at this point, I was so intrigued by it all. I loved the Olympic diving themes, how Jen so very nearly made it in the team, the reason why she didn’t. Everything felt so original and had me desperate to know what happened with Claudia all those years ago. I was constantly excited to read from the different POVs and I always needed to read another chapter (which isn’t good when you’re a before-bed reader!) I was desperate to get deeper into one big secret that Jen and Bill were keeping to themselves.

The middle

Bill is being secretive and Jen tries her best to find out what it is he’s hiding from her. The last thing he says before going off-grid is that he wants her to trust him. What did that mean? There’s new DNA evidence on material found on one of the team’s dives, and it was here where things really started to get messy for Jen. I shared every feeling she experienced with her; the anger from Bill just disappearing at a crucial time. The fear and anxiety that he could, maybe, have had something to do with Claudia’s disappearance. The overwhelming feeling of keeping a secret. These emotions were written with such an intensity that felt so real and I absolutely loved it all. Jen makes a huge discovery, then a split-second decision which would change so much, would make everything even more complicated than it already was. And all the values she’d held close to her chest, shattered. Even though detective work isn’t her job, she becomes a detective in her own case. Finding her brother and uncovering the truth, before anyone else.

“Jen knows what he’s going to say before the words leave his lips.

…She closes her eyes. The nightmare of their past has come knocking.”

There was a huge reveal here which really surprised me. Probably my favourite chapter in the whole book came after this! It really bought me into the moment and drew me into a different point of view. You know those chapters that make you completely forget you are living on Earth? The ones where you are so absorbed in the book that nothing else matters and you are fully living life in that fictional world? This. I so loved it. The eighteen-year-old secret these characters shared that I’d been so curious about is revealed and it was a lot. How have they gone through their lives with what happened on their conscience? We uncover the truths about a certain character and what we learn is truly horrific. The author so cleverly weaves new information and emotion and character development so effortlessly, and the lives of these characters, everything they’re going through, was all I could think of.

The end

The history of these characters is so much deeper than I first thought and written in such incredible detail. Even though it was so long ago, they’re still affected by what happened, and I didn’t blame them. I became so immersed in what we learn about Claudia’s past before her disappearance. The amount of times I ended a chapter with an, “Oh my god,” was just too many to count. The developments in the case here were each as shocking as the last, and I shared that claustrophobic feeling these characters felt as their walls were closing in, their secrets threatening to boil over. The pacing definitely gets faster, more urgent. What would happen to them if everything came to the surface? What would happen to Sam, Jen’s son? Placing myself in their shoes gave me anxiety. Jesus. I absolutely raced to that ending, and I still wasn’t ready for what it entailed!

“What a bitter thing it is to discover about yourself – that when the chips are down, you’re someone who will betray others in order not to face your own demons.”

Interrogation scenes were some of my favourites and everything here felt so tense and put me on edge. And the twists! Even though the clues were all there, I just didn’t guess them. So wonderfully written and executed. The truths here were so dark and unnerving, and I just couldn’t get enough. My opinions of certain characters changed and I admired Jen so much for everything she was doing to save the right people and punish those who deserved it. There are some absolutely incredible scenes, and it seems the book comes full circle by the end – what started in the water, ended in the water. After the last page I strangely teared up and wasn’t sure why. But I just think all the emotion for so many characters in those final chapters combined with just how beautifully it was all written became too much for my poor little heart. I am completely in love with this story and Liv’s talent. I could only hope to write a book half as good as this one day! A huge recommendation from me!

Overall thoughts

Silent Waters is a dark, unnerving and completely addictive thriller which will constantly give you that one-more-chapter feeling. It is superbly written – characters are connected so deeply and with so much history, a complex case of a missing woman which snowballs into something so much bigger than any of them could ever have imagined. Unthinkable secrets, so many satisfying twists and red herrings, as well as such an original plot has made this one of my books of the year. I feel so so lucky to have experienced it. I think this is one of those books you wish you could read for the first time again! Just brilliant from beginning to end. A must read!

You can grab your own copy of Silent Waters right now from Amazon or wherever you buy your books. Make sure you’re following lovely Liv over on Instagram and X/Twitter for more book updates!

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