The Silence In Between & The Echoes Of Us with Josie Ferguson & Emma Steele

Tickets £5-18.99

This is a live, in-person event.

Location: The Edinburgh Bookshop, 176 Bruntsfield Place, EH10 4DF

We are delighted to welcome two stunning debut authors, Josie Ferguson and Emma Steele, to The Edinburgh Bookshop with their novels The Silence In Between and The Echoes Of Us. Josie and Emma will be in conversation with each other, talking about their writing journeys, what inspires them and the inspiration behind their books.

About the book

The Silence In Between

Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your new-born baby and there is now no way of getting to him...

Lisette lives in East Berlin but brings her new-born baby to a hospital in West Berlin. Under doctor's orders, she goes home to rest, leaving the baby in the care of the hospital. But overnight the border between East and West closes, slicing the city - and the world - in two. With a city in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate.

Lisette's teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both live for music but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother - once a talented pianist - the world has gone silent. Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. 

What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home.... them from their private pains. Is it that simple?

Based on real stories, The Silence in Between is a stunning debut about a mother being separated from her child, set in Berlin in 1961 and during the Second World War.

A page-turning historical novel for fans of In Memoriam, All the Light We Cannot See and Alone in Berlin.

The Echoes Of Us

Robbie and Jenn are meant to be. They've finally reconciled after eight months spent apart and both know that, this time, it's forever.  But forever might not be as long as they think.

As a truck hurtles towards their car on their way home, Robbie is thrown back into Jenn's past and he finds himself spectator in the most important moments of her life: golden moments from her childhood and heart-breaking ones from her teenage years; her exhausting time at med school and just where she's been for the last eight months. But he may find more than he bargained for...  Can Robbie right the wrongs in their past? Can he get to the bottom of what drove Jenn away eight months ago? Most importantly, can he change their present in order to save their future?

About the Authors

Josie Ferguson was born in Sweden, to a family of writers and readers, and moved to Scotland when she was two. She returned to Sweden in her twenties, where she completed a vocational degree in Clinical Psychology (MSc). Upon graduating, she moved to London to pursue a career in publishing, something she had dreamed about since delving into fictional worlds as a child, hidden under the duvet with a torch.

She later moved to Asia in search of an adventure and a bit more sun and currently works as a freelance book editor in Singapore, where she lives with her husband and two young children. While training to become a clinical psychologist, Josie learned about the complexity of human nature, something she explores as a writer. She believes books about the past can change the future and she aspires to write as many as possible. The Silence in Between is her debut.

Emma Steele was born and raised on the rain-swept west coast of Scotland before heading up to The University of Aberdeen to study law. Working as a solicitor in Edinburgh, she continued to dabble in her childhood passions of art and creative writing for several years. It was after the birth of her first child that she began writing in earnest. Emma now writes big love stories with a twist, and with a particular focus on phenomena: near-death, shared-death, lucid dreams, she loves it all. The stunning city of Edinburgh is generally her setting of choice, but she likes to weave in elements of the wider world too. Still living close to the centre with her husband, two children and dog, Sunshine, Emma spends her weeks juggling writing and looking after her kids. She also holds the role of company secretary on the committee of the Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival. The Echoes of Us is her first novel and was picked as a book for 2024 in The Sun magazine, Fabulous.