The Silence of October

As the seventh Samhain since their daughter's death approaches, Klara and Hector Armstrong are struggling to live a normal life in the company of grief.
Klara, a former concert pianist, never wanted to be a mother, and is racked with a persistent guilt that she never loved her daughter in the way she should have.
Hector, an academic, tries to find solace in work, but his passion project biography of poet Garret O'Malley is echoing truths he's spent his lifetime avoiding.
An invitation to the Samhain Handfasting of their goddaughter Alice brings her mother, Klara's oldest friend Diane, back into their lives. Divorced and newly returned from New York, she arrives carrying secrets and with an agenda of her own.
As the anniversary - and the handfasting - approach, old wounds reopen, hidden truths emerge, and their three lives converge towards a reckoning with loss, change and the complexities of love.
Date of Publication: 01/09/2026