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In The Silent River, debut author Maya Collins weaves a haunting tale of grief, memory, and hidden violence beneath the surface of a quiet town. At the center is Claire, a young woman returning to her childhood home after her father’s mysterious death. What begins as a reluctant homecoming quickly unravels into a chilling exploration of buried secrets and long-forgotten betrayals. Collins demonstrates a strong command of atmosphere; the river itself becomes a near-character, its stillness mirroring the town’s unspoken tensions. Her prose is evocative without becoming overwrought, and readers will likely appreciate the slow-burn suspense that builds steadily toward a shocking climax. At its best, the novel succeeds in blending psychological depth with classic thriller tropes, offering both emotional resonance and page-turning intrigue. Still, The Silent River is not without flaws. The pacing, while deliberate, occasionally stalls in the middle chapters, where extended flashbacks detract from the urgency of the present-day mystery. Some secondary characters feel underdeveloped, serving more as devices to move the plot forward than as fully realized individuals. Readers seeking a fast-paced thriller may find themselves impatient with the novel’s reflective passages. Overall, Collins’ debut is an atmospheric and thoughtful thriller that lingers in the reader’s mind long after the final page. While uneven at times, its evocative writing and memorable setting make it a promising start to the author’s career. A moody, atmospheric thriller that favors emotional depth over relentless action.

I just began using the Kirkus Review website, so I haven’t seen any problems yet.

It's a scam. They don't read your book. Don't waste your money.

It's a scam. You pay them, they don't read the book. Their reviewer gives you his/her opinion and there's nothing you can do about it. Don't use this service.

FIRST A WARNING ON KIRKUS REVIEWS. Unlike The Online Book Club and other review for pay outlets, Kirkus, despite their much higher than average charge, does not appear to require their reviewers read the entire book. It refuses to re-consider reviews where clear mistakes and omissions in the review indicate that the reviewer skimmed the book and wrote their cursory review from personal and political biases. To avoid cancel culture blackballing, avoid Kirkus. The following is taken from my letter of complaint to Kirkus about a review I paid $595.00 for and found dishonest and worthless. "I believe the reviewer not only did not read the entire book, they failed to read carefully or intelligently any major proportion of it. I infer that the reviewer skimmed a few pages and disliked the point of view, which is critical of political and literary positions they endorse, and then decided to pan it. This would be typical of the “cancel culture” mentality increasingly prevalent in contemporary universities and the book industry. However, Kirkus offers no warning in its advertising that submissions that satirize “woke” or DEI biases will be canceled. Authors pay for and have traditionally had a right to expect politically unbiased reviews. Apparently, Kirkus no longer respects that right and instead defends “woke” bias as legitimate by virtue of their weasel word “subjectivity.” Kirkus generates a substantial portion of its revenue from reviews. Many authors, including myself, would avoid them altogether if properly warned about their indulgence of their reviewer’s political biases. Having reviewed and graded countless student book reports, I can almost always tell if a student has in fact read the whole book, or merely skimmed and made his/her case by cherry picking a few passages. The Kirkus review has all the earmarks of such a dishonest skim. For example, the reviewer stresses the novel’s comic aspects ignoring its dark side with three murders and five brutal deaths among the characters, and a villain motivated by racial hatred of a black woman. This is only one of many indications that the reviewer did not read the entire book. The novel subjects the reviewers’ treasured cancel culture along with its rightwing opposite to harsh Swiftian style satire. However, Kirkus’s reviewer never formally acknowledges her biases in favor of the targets of the satire. He/she also objects to its mixing genres, a criticism that applies to Shakespeare and, most important, to life itself. These are but a few of the errors, omissions, and misjudgments in the Kirkus review which as a result becomes little more than a tissue of sloppy errors, inexcusable omissions, and inappropriate biases. For Kirkus’s standard $599.00 fee for their expanded review, authors expect and deserve better. Reviews as biased and close-minded as this have no value to any author, they make Kirkus’s $599.00 charge a scam. I explained this in detail to Kirkus and told them I wanted either a review based on an unbiased, complete reading or my money refunded. They tried to defend the defective, biased review claiming that I was objecting to the reviewer’s “subjective judgments.” My response is that while subjective judgments are sometimes inevitable, unacknowledged political bias and gross negligence is not. Writers who expect Kirkus reviewers to read their entire book and write a fair-minded review should put their money to better use.

There is no respect for the writer or the work. My reviewer called my work extremely critical and condescending terms without giving a reason. Regardless of the quality of the work, a paying customer is entitled to some respect. There is no quality assurance. Once the review is assigned, the reviewer can write whatever they want. If their review has no relation to the work, there's nothing the editors can or will do about it. The reviewer may not read more than a few pages. It is irrelevant to anyone in the organization. My experience with Kirkus was a waste of my time. I would not use their service.

Don't use this service. It's a total scam. At one time Kirkus was a trusted brand but now they lure independent authors in, and never thoroughly read their books and then slam them. Kirkus assigns reviewers to your book who don't fit your genre and then bash your book because the reviewer would never read that type of book to start with. In effect, they steal your money and rob potential readers who enjoy and who seek out your genre, of the opportunity to find your title. Then they defend their dishonest practices whenever they are exposed by further attacking your title. But when asked more about the reviewer, their demographic and their taste in books, Kirkus goes silent. If you write a love and romance book, Kirkus is prone to passing your title to a reviewer who dislikes love and romance and who will cherry pick parts of your book and take things out of context to include in your negative review. They also don't take into account positive reviews from anywhere else no matter how many examples you provide them. Plus, they will never re-review your title. If you are an author backed by a major publisher, they will surely be more thoughtful in their process. But if you are an indie author, you are likely to be scammed.