Speechless: A Novel

In this voicy, inventive, shocking thriller, a coma patient who learns to communicate again begins sharing increasingly chilling messages about the accident that caused his injuries--and who may have been responsible.

As a communication facilitator, Leah Andrews has trained to help brain-damaged individuals who can no longer communicate for themselves. She assists their hands to type out words on a computer, bringing the messages trapped inside their heads to light. When she's hired by a desperate wife whose husband has been in a vegetative state for over a year after falling down a marble staircase in their home, Leah is determined to reach the man inside. She's new to this therapy practice, having taken it on as her new career after a bad breakup left her wanting a fresh start. Now she’s taken on Eliot’s case, hoping to help him heal and bring him back to his wife and two daughters.

For weeks, with Leah's coaching, Eliot makes small steps of progress until finally they have a real breakthrough and he presents his first direct message: HELP ME. And the stronger he gets, the more chilling each subsequent message becomes, and Leah feels compelled to look more closely at what happened to Eliot, and at this family who seems from the outside to be close and caring. But the more she learns, the more certain she becomes that Eliot's accident might not have been so accidental at all....

With a totally compelling main character in Leah and an irresistible high-concept premise, Speechless is a twisty, shocking thrill ride from start to finish and the introduction of a bold new voice in psychological suspense.