GSMC Book Review Podcast · GSMC Audiobooks Network

The Girl Without a Voice by Sandra J. Paul | GSMC Book Review Podcast

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

Sandra J. Paul links Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and missing-persons cases to the book’s origin.

1. GSMC Book Review Podcast talks with Sandra J. Paul about The Girl Without a Voice and its 1980s psychological-suspense premise. 2. Sandra J. Paul is a Belgian author who writes in Dutch and English, and host Sarah frames her as both a thriller writer and children’s author. 3. The episode asks how Alice, a mute 24-year-old in 1980s Kansas, moves from isolation to a search for truth. 4. Alice lives with a mother who acts as caretaker and a father who travels as a salesman for most of the week. 5. Alice communicates with her parents through notebooks because they do not learn sign language, even though she can hear. 6. Haley, a young neighbor, learns ASL and becomes Alice’s first meaningful connection outside her family. 7. Sandra J. Paul says the father returns with stage four cancer and begins speaking in ways that make Alice question everything. 8. She explains that the book’s investigation grows from those confessions into travel along the father’s old sales routes. 9. Paul says she wanted the setting to matter because the early 1980s had no internet, no cell phones, and fewer ways to track missing people. 10. She also says the story was shaped by her reading about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Green River Killer, and The Stranger Beside Me. 11. Paul says she wanted a true-crime feeling that could read like something that really happened. 12. She notes that Alice’s isolation is so extreme that, in her words, if the house burned down, nobody would know she was there. 13. Paul says Alice’s resilience and determination matter most because the character still wants to enter real society. 14. She describes Alice as young in voice and mindset because books, soaps, and television are her main windows on the world. 15. Paul says the first draft needed revision because Haley’s role as a moral compass became clearer only later. 16. She also says she researched ASL and 1980s highway travel so the logistics of the plot would feel grounded. 17. The interview style is conversational and detail-heavy, with Sarah steering from premise to research to character psychology. 18. Paul’s tone is reflective and practical, especially when she talks about translation, research, and rewriting. 19. Readers who like isolated protagonists, 1980s settings, and psychological suspense will likely enjoy this episode. 20. Readers wanting light banter or a spoiler-free, low-stakes book chat may skip it.

As heard by us

A relaxed book chat that frames psychological suspense with a light, conversational touch.

Sarah and Sandra J. Paul keep this episode centered on The Girl Without a Voice as psychological suspense, and the conversation stays easy to follow. Sarah opens warmly, gives the title some context, and keeps the handoff into the interview smooth.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a warm, spoiler-safe nudge toward a psychological suspense read.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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