We chat with author Fiona McPhillips about When We Were Silent, which sees an outsider threaten to expose the secrets at an elite private school.
Hi, Fiona! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a journalist, author and screenwriter from Ireland. I’m also an editor at The Forge literary magazine. I’ve previously published two nonfiction books but When We Were Silent is my first novel. I live in Dublin with my three kids, two cats and a dog.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
As soon as I could read! I read everything in the house when I was a kid, from Dickens to Steinbeck to the Brontës. I didn’t understand any of them. My dad remembers finding me reading a book about jobbers in the stock market – I must have read everything else on the shelves at that point.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Probably a Secret Seven by Enid Blyton
- The one that made you want to become an author: All of the Famous Fives and Secret Sevens
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Right now that’s The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Your debut novel, When We Were Silent, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Furious, feminist dark academia thriller
What can readers expect?
Lou Manson is an outsider in the throes of grief and rage when she joins Highfield Manor, a private convent school in 1980s Dublin. Beyond the granite pillars and the wrought-iron gates is a world of wealth, privilege and potential – and the abuse Lou has come to expose. But the deeper Lou digs, the more she discovers that the Highfield elite will go to any lengths to protect their own reputation, even when the consequences are fatal.
Thirty years later, Lou has rebuilt her life after the harrowing events of the so-called “Highfield Affair” when she is called to testify in a new lawsuit against the school. But telling the truth means confronting her own complicity and there is one story she swore she’d never tell…
Where did the inspiration for When We Were Silent come from?
I’d been threatening to write a novel for a long time so in 2019 I did an MA in Creative Writing. During that time, I had the good fortune to read Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird. I took to heart her advice to write about your childhood: “that time in your life when you were so intensely interested in the world, when your powers of observation were at their most acute, when you felt things so deeply.”
At the same time, I was also listening to the BBC podcast Where is George Gibney? about the former Irish national swimming coach who avoided trial in 1994 for years of sexual abuse against his young swimmers. I was so inspired by all the victims who stood up to him in the early 90s, and by everyone who went public with their stories for the podcast. They painted a very clear picture of how he was supported to keep abusing kids for so long, how slow everyone was to believe he was capable of it and to understand the true horror of what “it” actually was.
In When We Were Silent, I wanted to explore both of these things, the determination, loyalty and joy I remember from my own teenage years, and the forces that try to steal that power.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love Lou so much. She’s a more worldly, braver version of me and I loved making her happy and giving her tender moments with Shauna.
What led you to writing a thriller?
I love thrillers but I love considered prose and characters more. So I wanted to try and write a page-turner that really focused on prose, dialogue and character development as part of the process.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Compared to most people, it was a fairly straight road but let me just say that publishing is hard, no matter what! But yeah, I was lucky. When We Were Silent was runner-up for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger award in the UK in 2021 so I was in the very fortunate position of having agents and publishers approaching me for a finished manuscript. There was none! I’d only written the few chapters needed to enter the competition. What followed was another year of furious writing before I secured four offers of representation and signed with Rachel Neely at Mushens Entertainment. It was a bit of a whirwind when we went out on submission and we accepted offers from Transworld in the UK and Flatiron in the US on the same day.
What’s next for you?
I’m coming to the end of the first draft of my second book, due out in early 2026. It’s about a teenager who goes missing after a rave in the Dublin mountains in 2001. When his remains are found twenty years later, the friends who were with him that night are thrown back together and they are all suspects in his murder.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
I can’t wait for Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. I loved Fleishman is in Trouble so much.
