Name: Breaking the Silence
ISBN: 9781551664842

Diane Chamberlain

Breaking the Silence

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I ahve really enjoyed the other titles I have read by Diane Chamberlain, but this one fell flat. A quick pek at the copyright page shows that this is one of her earlier works and it's easy to see how she's grown in her craft over the years. It's not that this is a bad book, it's just not great.

Laura Brandon visits her father on his deathbed where he extracts a promise from her to take care of Sarah Tolley, a woman Laura has never heard of. Laura returns home after her father's death to find that her husband has killed himself and her young daughter Emma apparently witnessed it. After witnessing her step-father's suicide, Emma becomes mute.

Laura meets Sarah, an elderly woman who suffers from Alzheimer's. Despite Sarah's memory lapses, Laura uses her time with Sarah to try to figure out what her father's connection was to her. Sarah is happy to tell stories from her past and recounts her career as a psychiatric nurse and also tells how she met her husband Joe. Laura is still no closer to finding the connection.

Meanwhile,