Horror Book Review: Where No One Can Hear You by J E Rowney

 

This week's Horror Book Pick is WHERE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU by J.E. Rowney.

The book was published in March 2025 and is on the bestsellers list for Horror Suspense and Kidnapping Thrillers.

The book has received positive ratings for its gripping storyline and psychological depth. The negatives were about how some of the scenes were a little too traumatic and that the characterization was at times uneven.

Where No One Can Hear You is about sixteen year old Amanda who is out in the woods with her friend Sarah when they become targets of a predator.

Amanda wakes up with injuries but comes to a chilling realization: her friend Sarah is gone and no one is talking to her about her whereabouts.

In the prologue we find Amanda laying on the road, bleeding. She's praying for a car to stop, and for someone to find her. So that she can save her.

The "her" in question is probably her friend Sarah.

In the next chapter we meet Sarah and Amanda and get an insight into their friendship. They are normal sixteen-year-olds, trying to complete a cross-country run with their school mates.

Sarah has an asthma problem but that doesn't mean she isn't fit enough to run ahead with the others. Amanda assumes Sarah is running with her because she wants to keep her company.

As it turns out, the girls get left behind, Amanda gets hurt and when they return to school, their principal doesn't offer any sympathy but does give them detention.

Sarah's mother arrives and points out that her daughter should not have been made to run because of her asthma problems, which makes the principal back up a little. She then offers Amanda a ride home as well.

Things are not going great for Amanda at home. Her father has left, and her mother is now with Paul for four months at least. He doesn't seem to like Amanda much, or at least that is what she thinks about the new man in her house.

She begins to feel neglected and wonders if her mother even notices her anymore. She did cancel pizza night after all.

But the reason her mother misses Pizza night is because she had been at an appointment— she's pregnant with a baby boy.

Amanda isn't sure whether to be happy about this. Paul and her mother are going to have another kid and be a family and like anyone would think in her situation, she wonders about her place in the family.

One day, her mother doesn't come out of the bathroom, and there's blood on the floor.

As Paul rushes her to the hospital, he blames Amanda for stressing her mother out.

Amanda gets guilt-ridden to the point that she doesn't respond to her friend's messages and calls.

Perhaps the most poignant sentence is when she thinks..."because look what happens when I exist too much."

That alone shows how abandoned and dejected Amanda feels.

To Read Or Not To Read?

Where No One Can Hear You has an excellent prologue bringing us right to where Amanda is, in the middle of the road hoping to be saved but also desperately hoping her friend, the one who has been a big support, is fine.

It's a great hook to get you turning the pages and finding out what happened.

Amanda isn't just a timid girl with surface level issues. The author manages to get deep into the character's psyche and manages to convey her emotions well.

Amanda's feelings are valid. Her feeling left out is believable although not true.

Based on the plot summary it appears that Sarah and Amanda are going to get into some trouble which. To make sure we, as readers, are completely engrossed in their experience, the author has tactfully shown the sweet friendship the two girls share.

It's lovely to see that teenage girls are not portrayed as bratty, impulsive creatures, but people who have their own thought process and are gradually learning the ways of the real world.

For that alone, I would want to continue reading the novel, to understand how things have gone wrong and if any of the characters will end up with a happy ending.

Where No One Can Hear You is an intriguing book with a lot of promise and is going in my list of books I want to read this year.

In fact, I've already gotten my copy.

If you too want to read this book, you can get it on Amazon