Silence

Becca Fitzpatrick
The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They’ve overcome the secrets riddled in Patch’s dark past, bridged two irreconcilable worlds and faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty and trust-all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth.
Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in one another, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they’ve worked for-and their love-forever.
The third instalment in the Hush Hush saga, Silence begins three months after the climax of Crescendo, wow, Becca can sure write a cliff hanger! A bruised, disorientated and confused Nora wakes up in a graveyard with no recollection of how she got there and with no memory of the previous five months. She has no idea what a Nephilim is, that angels even exist and, yep you’ve guessed it, no memory of meeting and falling in love with Patch. Her soul, however, hasn’t forgotten him, and while she can’t put her finger on it exactly, she is calling out for something, craving something and everywhere she looks she is drawn to black.
This craving appears to be fulfilled when Nora meets the enigmatic, black eyed Jev, for whom she feels an instant attraction and trust. Fans of the series will recognise that Jev is really Patch, but why is he keeping his identity a secret from Nora and why are Nora’s mother and best friend, Vee also being selective with the truth?
If like me, after waiting for almost a year, you are beside yourself to discover the outcome of Nora and Patch’s confrontation with The Black Hand I’m afraid to say that you are going to have to be patient for a little longer. While all is revealed by the end of the book, like Nora you are going to have to work to get the answers you seek. As a reader I initially found the three month jump in the story frustrating and disorientating however, once re-immersed in the world of Hush Hush, I recognised that skipping forward three months in the story was an excellent device to create empathy for Nora’s condition. I enjoyed discovering the answers with Nora and having the opportunity to witness Nora meeting and falling in Love with “ Jev”- How often do you get to re experience a first kiss and that first flush of love with the same man?!
Having made the decision, in Crescendo, to go rogue and having experienced three months of terror, not knowing where or how Nora was, profoundly affected Patch. In Silence (despite initially hiding his identity) Patch is more open with Nora. He is more tactile, finding any excuse to touch her, as if reassuring himself that she is still there. He finally invites Nora in to his home, letting her in to a previously unseen part of his life and he is more expressive of his feelings, verbally and non verbally (I just melted when we discovered that he had been food shopping for her).
While on the subject of Patch’s feelings I was lucky enough to get my hands on a limited edition of Silence. This signed first edition comes with the additional content of a play list and..Patch’s perspective of the (real) first time he and Nora met. The first thing I did when I got the book home was to turn to the back of the book and devour the unusual grey pages and white text. I totally loved this opportunity to get inside the head of the gorgeous enigma and observe his first impressions of our heroine and his softening feelings towards her.
Now I have to admit that I had mixed feelings when I heard, shortly before the release of Silence, that there was going to be a fourth book in the Hush Hush saga. I am not the most patient person, I actually prefer to join a series near its completion and avoid the frustrating wait between instalments, and not to mention Crescendo concluded with the mother of all cliff hangers! So, while I loved this series and didn’t want my relationship with the characters to have to come to an end, I felt that having to wait another year to experience the completion of Nora and Patch’s story was going to be pure literary torture. I should have had more faith in the author. While Silence leaves you craving more, it is not the emotional wrecking ball of Crescendo and I think I’ll survive until the publication of Hush Hush #4; well just!
Verdict: Like Nora I fall a little more in love with Patch with each book and with each book I fall a little more in love with this series.
Reviewed by Caroline