-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A beautifully crafted novel about the tragic effects of a devastating childhood.
"There was a child in our courtyard. I saw a child there, standing by the fountain. She was there, then she was gone."
On the death of the celebrated photographer Max Hollingbourne, his daughter, Ruthie, returns to his villa in Greece after fifteen years in exile. The youngest and estranged member of a once close-knit London family, Ruthie is haunted by a dark secret from her childhood, one that fractured her family and drove her mother to madness.
Still, following her father's death, she and her older sister, Vinny, manage to build a fragile happiness at the villa where they had spent their summers as girls. But the arrival of an English family at a neighboring cottage, and the presence of one young girl in particular, trigger a chain of events that will plunge both women back into their harrowing pasts with shocking and fatal consequences.
Haunting, lyrical, and beautifully crafted, Silver and Salt is a profoundly moving novel about the consequences of love and betrayal.
"Starred Review. Haunting....Psychologically acute, Silver and Salt will continue to grip readers long after its devastating conclusion." - Booklist
"Readers will be unprepared when the novel takes a decidedly surprising turn, and though the ending strains belief, the author makes it all hang together." - Publishers Weekly
"An original, visual approach to the often explored theme of how cruel and selfish parents can cause lifelong trauma for their children. For most readers." - Library Journal
"The grueling and fascinating process of photographic development reads like its own sort of poetry in this gut-wrenching, achingly intimate look at grief and how closely art and life intertwine, for better or worse." - Kirkus
"Elanor Dymott is a master of delicate psychological suspense, treading gently but with devastating precision until every detail of this very sad story is revealed and embedded in the reader's mind, possibly forever." - Elena Lappin, author of What Language Do I Dream In?
This information about Silver and Salt was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elanor Dymott was born in Zambia. She studied literature at Worcester College, Oxford, later working in London and Southeast Asia as a lawyer and legal reporter. She lives in London.
If you liked Silver and Salt, try these:
by Carol Smith
Published 2022
A powerful exploration of grief following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal.
by Natasha Trethewey
Published 2021
A chillingly personal and exquisitely wrought memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather, and the moving, intimate story of a poet coming into her own in the wake of a tragedy.
by Luke Allnutt
Published 2019
A triumphant story about love, loss and finding hope - against all odds.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
