Author Bridget Collins writes highly atmospheric gothic historical fiction with a splash of fantasy. Her books are always unique and otherworldly. The Silence Factory (2024) is no exception. The narrative switches between the diary of Sophia Ashmore Percy, whose husband is searching for some mythical spiders on a remote Greek Island, and Henry Latimer, a young widower who becomes entangled with the same family a couple of generations later. It turns out that the spiders spin a silk that mutes sound, prompting Henry to come up with a multitude of inventive uses for it, but other people have more nefarious goals in mind.
Exploitation, avarice, power, abuse and more, this novel covers a lot of intriguing themes. For readers of Sarah Perry and Sarah Penner.