The Silent Women, Notes From an Asylum, is available HERE at Linen Press
Some early reviews:
‘In The Silent Women: Notes from an Asylum, Avril Joy has written a truly captivating novel – an unputdownable! What a treat that is, to have a novel that calls to you, urging you to read on, though I realise now, having come to the end of the story that it was those women who were calling me. Simone. Phoebe. Alice. I know the women of Dormitory Twelve will stay with me for a long time for they are such a strong cast of resilient multi-dimensional female characters. I am sure readers of this novel will come to love them too for their tenderness and indomitable spirit. A skillful portrayal of the human condition and a triumph of storytelling,’ Novelist – Anna Barker
Avril Joy’s previous novel Sometime a River Song won a prestigious prize and to my mind this latest, an immersive historical novel set in a Victorian lunatic asylum, is just as worthy of acclaim. Joy writes exquisitely about people and places and this novel contrasts the gothic horrors of the asylum with the beauty of the outside world whether in the asylum ‘airing courts’ or the countryside beyond. Like Pat Barker’s Trojan women in The Silence of the Girls, the inmates of Long Meadow asylum show us how women have struggled to find a voice through the ages but also how light can be found in the most profound darkness. I loved this book and can’t recommend it highly enough.’ Novelist – Ali Bacon
…so beautifully written it takes my breath away… I love that, above all, it is about love and sisterhood and community among totally dispossessed and forgotten women. Director of the Weardale Word, Book Festival, Vane Woman writer – Chris Powell
A moving and powerful indictment of the nineteenth century asylum…an atmospheric and tender work of art. I especially like the different forms used to differentiate the voices of the three women…Author, Librarian and Arts Director,- Gillian Wales