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Alone in My Silence
In Silence follows a woman who survives a brutal assault tied to a dangerous mission as she tries to rebuild her life and overcome her pain. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Honestly, when I first wrote it, I couldn’t tell you. Now, I think it was inspired by how I felt alone in my silence when I was going through a tough time. I subconsciously wrote a book where someone was there for Zara in a way I never got to experience. That, and I was curious about the concept of it being so cold you didn’t bleed out.
Zara withholds parts of herself even from people who care about her. What drew you to that kind of emotional guardedness?
Personal experience. I grew up thinking crying was a weakness, and physical affection was a vulnerability. I thought I was tough because I never learned to lean, and in the end, I made it harder for myself and everyone around me.
How did you approach writing the “before and after” divide in Zara’s life?
I essentially imagined Zara in a mission-focused space where she was a soldier first, and then in a mission-oriented space where she was recovering as the mission directed, and then in a family-oriented space where she was learning that it was okay to be more than the mission.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon?
Yeah, actually, I’m writing a sequel that follows Artemis, Zara’s teammate’s, POV. I don’t have a solid plan on when it’ll be out, though.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
In darkness, I was seen
Bella had expected things to be different when she came home for her grandma’s funeral, but nothing could have prepared her for how different it would be.
Not only had her grandparents taken in a local Park Ranger, their lives had been filled with people and traditions Bella is no longer a part of.
Despite her surprise, Bella is immediately taken with the ranger whose scars run deeper than the eye can see. Her sympathy and grief war with her desire to know everything about the mysterious stranger.
Before she can learn more, the man who haunts Zara’s past returns, and Zara descends into silence.
With bodies piling up and threats escalating, will Bella’s attraction put her in danger, or will it be the lifeline Zara so desperately needs to keep her past from pulling her back into the shadows?
In Silence
In Silence is a romantic suspense novel with a strong thread of trauma recovery and found-family drama. It follows Zara Holt, a woman who survives a brutal assault tied to a long, dangerous mission, then tries to rebuild herself with the help of Bill and Betty, the older couple who become her refuge, and later Bella, whose love slowly opens a door Zara never meant to leave unlocked. The book moves through pain, secrecy, investigation, tenderness, and loss, and it keeps asking what it really means to survive when your life has been split into before and after.
Author Revka Ashford writes like she’s not interested in looking away, and I respected that even when the material was hard to sit with. The opening is harsh and cold and visceral, then the story gradually makes room for warmth without pretending warmth fixes everything. I liked that. The writing can be intense to the point of overload at times, and there were moments when the emotion felt piled on, but I never felt the book was faking its heart. It wants readers to feel the bruise, not just admire the sentence. Sometimes that worked beautifully.
I also found myself thinking a lot about the author’s choices around silence, identity, and care. Zara is not written as a neat lesson or a simple survivor figure. She is stubborn, trained, fractured, loving, evasive, and often hard to reach. That made her feel real to me. The book’s structure, with its shifts in perspective and its widening circle of people around her, lets healing feel communal, which is one of the most convincing things about it. Bill and Betty give the novel its soul. Bella brings a softer current, but not a weak one. Their relationship gives the story a pulse that keeps it from becoming only about violence and aftermath. I appreciated that the novel keeps love from feeling magical. Love matters here but it doesn’t erase damage. It just gives Zara somewhere to stand while she carries it.
By the end, I felt like I had been through something heavy but relatable. I would recommend In Silence to readers who like romantic suspense with real emotional weight, to people drawn to stories about survival and found family, and to anyone who can tolerate darkness in exchange for tenderness that feels earned. This is the kind of book that keeps you thinking after you put it down because it cares so fiercely about broken people finding their way back to one another.
Pages: 439 | ASIN : B0GR7HV9FK
