Blogtour / Excerpt: The Silent Girls by Ann Troup

What an honour it is to not only be on this Blog Tour but also kick it off today.

I am delighted to have an excerpt from The Silent Girls for you today on this blog tour. Hope you enjoy it!

What if everything you knew was a lie…
This house has a past that won’t stay hidden, and it is time for the dead to speak.

Returning to Number 17, Coronation Square, Edie is shocked to find the place she remembers from childhood reeks of mould and decay. After her aunt Dolly’s death Edie must clear out the home on a street known for five vicious murders many years ago, but under the dirt and grime of years of neglect lurk dangerous truths.

For in this dark house there is misery, sin and dark secrets that can no longer stay hidden. The truth must come out.

Finding herself dragged back into the horrific murders of the past, Edie must find out what really happened all those years ago. But as Edie uncovers the history of the family she had all but forgotten, she begins to wonder if sometimes it is best to leave them buried.

Excerpt

At first glance Coronation Square didn’t seem to have changed much in over thirty years; it still had its postage stamp patch of green in the middle and still boasted its tall Victorian houses on all four sides. It still looked blowsy and overdone, and it still had a baleful air that marked it out as somewhere to be wary of. On closer inspection, Edie could see that things had altered – the square had faded like an old rose and its previously respectable veneer had degenerated into a flimsy, fragile facade.

As she walked past the buildings she noticed the addition of new doorbells, up to six per house, each one bearing a flimsy weather faded label that left people none the wiser as to who might live there. Old family homes had been carved up, mutating into flats and bedsits to house a cheapskate, shifting population. The street drinkers and off duty prostitutes made a desultory change from the sherry sipping matriarchs who had twitched their net curtains and traded in gossip. Edie remembered them well and shuddered at the thought.

Number 17 was just as it always had been, and as familiar to Edie as looking back at her own childhood face in photographs. The house stood out like a rotten tooth, seedy and discoloured from neglect, ancient blue paint flaked from the window frames and peeled in curling sheets from the front door. The brass knocker hung precariously from a single remaining screw, the metal pockmarked and dulled by years of inattention. Edie regarded the whole place with a reluctance that sat like a brooding gargoyle at the centre of her being. This was not a visit she would have chosen to make had she not been forced to by circumstances, and the state of the house represented everything that she felt about her extended family – neglected, old-fashioned, out of kilter and more than a little embarrassing. The Morris family would never have been singled out for the voracity of their housekeeping or their ability to embrace change. Edie doubted that the Morris family would have been singled out for much, though she might have won the prize for most inept midlife crisis, most acrimonious divorce and person never likely to amount to much (if anyone had held a competition).

Not that any of it mattered, she had arrived and there was work to do. To her surprise the old key worked perfectly and gave her easy entry into a cluttered, dingy, pungent past.