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Praise & Reviews

“Fantastic first novel…Silver makes us think critically about capital punishment without ever getting up on a soapbox or turning her great yarn into a civics lesson. As this unstoppable story bounds end-over-end to “X-Day,” we are reminded that everybody is guilty of something. Forgiveness, freedom and peace are rare commodities, and Silver keeps us guessing about whether or not we will find them here.”
—Washington Post

“Bracing and combative… a classic slow-burn, with Ms. Silver spinning the web…and masterfully revealing the threads that connect [the characters] to each other and to the crime…The novel proceeds to its heart-wrenching conclusion by a series of feints and betrayals that would make Gillian Flynn stand and applaud.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“I have been reviewing books professionally since 1976, and reading adult fiction since 1964. Through those decades, I cannot recall a debut novel written more skillfully than The Execution of Noa P. Singleton.”
—Dallas Morning News  (full review)

“Like the narrators in recent best-sellers Gone Girl and The Dinner, Noa is endlessly complex and impossible to trust. Don’t try to outsmart her — you can’t. Just let her manipulate, shock, and maybe even move you.”
—Entertainment Weekly (full review)

“In lucid, fast-moving prose, Elizabeth Silver, who comes well-equipped for the task with a JD and an MFA, constructs an intricate and thoughtful psychological thriller, vacillating between Noa’s wry flashbacks – she comes across as a kind of sassier Meursault – and the bizarre letters Marlene writes her daughter in the afterlife.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Silver is a talent to watch, a writer able to conjure odd and savagely beautiful images from the mundane.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Silver’s first novel is hardly an insubstantial beach read. A few months before her scheduled execution, Singleton receives a visit from her victim’s mother, an influential attorney who says, “Not so fast with the finale.” Why now? It may profoundly affect your stand on the death penalty, whatever you opinion might be. Superior storytelling.”
—Tulsa World

“In this tense and multi-layered first novel of life on death row . . . Noa’s powerful voice, full of attitude and alienation, commands attention throughout the book. . . .In Noa, Silver has created an articulate and intelligent protagonist who asks us to revisit our existing notions of victimhood.”
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune  (full review)

Kirkus has selected NOA as one of the best books of the summer! 

A wonderful essay on antiheroines in The New Republic,which discusses The Execution of Noa P. Singleton and The Silent Wife
“The wonderful contradiction of the antiheroine is that she cannot help but narrate her story unreliably, most of all to herself…Noa’s voice is so pungent and potent as she describes the facts and pooh-poohs the theories of her criminality… We realize the tragic flaw both women share, which is that protecting our loved ones produces greater catastrophe than letting people be. The effect blurs our ability to delineate between criminal and victim, shattering the ‘mucous-thin terrain where most of life resides.’…The antiheroines of The Execution of Noa P. Singleton and The Silent Wife may make it difficult for some readers to like them. But their deeds, however monstrous, are true to their natural character, and command reader attention by cementing their respect—a harder road with a more rewarding payoff.”
—The New Republic (full review)

“Silver deftly handles dark and weighty topics without ever sacrificing a literary attention to detail… “The Execution of Noa P. Singleton” is a not just a novel, but a mirror upheld to a fragile, human criminal justice system.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch (full review)

NOA has been selected as the “Featured Debut” in Amazon.com’s “Best Books of the Month” for June 2013!

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, June 2013: “Smart, quick and disarmingly direct, the eponymous heroine of this stunning debut is a twenty-something college dropout on death row for murder in Pennsylvania. Did Noa P. Singleton actually kill the daughter of the woman now agitating for the state to commute her death sentence? And if so (or even if not) why is Sarah Dixon’s mom, who writes letters to her dead daughter throughout, so anxious for Noa to be cleared? If those were the only questions, this would have been an average thriller. Thanks to very complex characters and jagged, jarring prose–a gun sits in a backpack “awkwardly like an adult in a kindergarten class”; Noa declines to occupy the passenger seat on her lawyer’s “virginal ride to salvation”–and a plot that twists and turns but never neatly resolves, it’s genius: a pithy, funny, sad story about truth and lies, and whether we ever really, truly know the difference.”
—Sara Nelson

A fantastic essay on angry heroines in contemporary fiction in Omnivoracious mentioning Noa P. Singleton!

NOA has been selected as an Editor’s Pick for Amazon.co.uk for the “Best of the Month” for June in England!

A massive thank you to Books & Books owner, Mitchell Kaplan, for selecting NOA in his summer books suggestions.

NOA has been selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of the Ten Debuts To Pick up Now
“In this grippingly off-kilter thriller, a young woman sits on death row after being convicted of murder until a high-powered attorney – the victim’s mother – intervenes, leaving everyone to wonder why.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine (link)

BookPage’s 10 Notable Books for June
“Gripping and introspective first novel…The book revolves around the “why”…It is an emotion-packed style, similar to that used by Lionel Shriver in her acclaimed novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, as the reader tries to come to grips with how much weight should be given to mitigating circumstances in determining guilt or innocence.”
—BookPage (full review)

“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is a captivating story that warns without being preachy, haunts without being ghastly and beckons without being needy. It shows that battles can be prepared for over years but won or lost in a matter of seconds. This is a book that will pinch your cheeks, give you a hug, slap you, confuse you, infuriate you, freeze you and warm you. You’ll be waiting to see if Noa can avoid the death penalty and you’ll be waiting to see the account of how exactly the killing took place. The only way you won’t like this novel is if you suffer from hemorrhoids because once you start it, you’ll be sitting for a while. But either way, you’ll be on the edge of your seat.”
—The Jerusalem Blueprint  (full review)

“Truly mesmerising…a remarkable novel by a young American writer…As well as functioning with great authority on the narrative level, this is a book with something to say — but Silver never imports ideological points at the expense of gripping storytelling.”
—Barry Forshaw

“[A] searing debut…This devastating read stands less as a polemic against the death penalty than as a heartbreaking brief for the preciousness of life.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“Silver has written a darkly witty, acerbic jigsaw puzzle of a first novel about legal versus moral culpability…[and] explores convolutions of guilt and innocence beyond the law’s narrow scope with a sharpness and attention to detail that can be unnerving but demands attention.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“Compelling debut…A clever examination of the nature of destiny and the choices we make, this thought-provoking book is reminiscent of John Grisham’s The Confession in its exploration of the death penalty. Silver has successfully written a suspenseful, absorbing tale.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Vividly written debut novel…Silver definitely delivers a thought-provoking examination of the criminal-justice system, providing a clear-eyed view of the artificial theatrics that dominate criminal trials and a heartfelt look at both grief and remorse. An intriguing debut from a writer to watch.”
—Booklist

“What does one look for in a good novel? Fascinating characters, a terrific plot, depth of thought? Silver delivers all of these and more. Her prose is paradoxically both unflinching and poetic. She creates magic with unsparing truth. Is there innocence disguised within guilt? Is redemption possible? Can punishment truly fit the crime?”
—Federal Lawyer

“Silver gives Noa a voice powerful enough to make us want to know the answers…In Elizabeth Silver’s debut novel, a sympathetic anti-heroine reveals a story that is ultimately tragic, yet flecked with dark humor.”
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“This is a beautiful and consuming tale revolving around two women who are both torn, both guilty and both looking for some kind of redemption. Elizabeth Silver has set the bar very high for herself with this outstanding debut novel.”
—Crimespree

“Haunting…Silver writes poetically with an adeptness that marks her out as a debut author to watch…A genuinely compulsive novel that can’t be set aside until the last page is turned. Noa P might not be a literary heroine you will fall in love with, but you will find it hard to let her go.”
—Express (UK)

“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is an almost weirdly gripping thriller, presented in teasing slow motion. Author Elizabeth L. Silver displays a wicked genius for sucking us into a black maelstrom of nebulous uncertainty, making our need to find out the truth all the more urgent. Believe the hype: this is quite the irresistible page-turner.”
—BookReporter.com

“A thoughtful book which keeps turning itself upside down with new revelations about the protagonist, antagonist and several other characters. The book is mostly narrated by Noa, but the chapters end with letters written by the victim’s mother to her deceased daughter. The trial scenes were fascinating, and the selection of the jury was hilarious. But best of all, the book made you think, not only about the nature of the death penalty but about the judicial system as well. Ms. Silver managed to write a fascinating book, told by an unreliable narrator which manages to tell a fascinating story in shades of gray. There are no good guys or bad guys in the story, everyone has their own demons within them, trying to make things right in their own head.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Exploring good and evil in a thought provoking yet entertaining fashion, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver reads surprisingly quickly. With murder, the death penalty and the quality of justice called into question, morality becomes an increasingly slippery slope.”
—Campus Circle

“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton kept me awake long after I had put it down. Halfway through this gripping novel, in which ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘guilt’ and ‘innocence’ change positions more than once, I thought I was so clever I might know where this story was headed. But I was proved wrong in a way I never could have imagined. Congratulations to Elizabeth L. Silver for a fantastic first book that will keep readers awake all over the world.”
—Herman Koch, author of The Dinner

“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is mortal war between ferocious women, told with a fiery and merciless lyricism so beautiful it hurts.”
—Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton is an intense and gripping novel of betrayal and guilt that forces readers to confront their convictions and the limitations of their capacity for empathy. Elizabeth L. Silver is a gifted new writer, and her novel is certain to be a smash.”
—Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother

“In The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, Elizabeth Silver puts the human factor front and center, to devastating effect. Guilt and innocence, capital punishment, the living hell of death row, all these get their due, but at the heart of it is us, the ongoing mystery of what lies inside our souls.”
—Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

“Smart, cool, articulate, funny, and savvy—Noa P. Singleton dares you to put her story down.”
—Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister