Every town has its secrets. This one just made theirs public.
When music teacher
Ava Finch
corrects her student in a café, it should have been nothing - a late assignment, a soft rebuke, over in seconds. But in a town that listens too loudly, even silence can sound like guilt.
By sunset, a rumor has become a story. By morning, the story has become a scandal. And by the end of the week, an entire community has convinced itself it's protecting a child while quietly destroying a woman.
Through the eyes of
Noreen
, the café owner who "heard it all,"
Jonas
, the journalist who gives the lie a headline,
Mara
, the friend who dares to defend the accused, and
Elliot
, the boy at the center of it all, the town's collective voice becomes a living weapon - whisper by whisper, post by post.
What begins as a misunderstanding turns into a moral wildfire - and the truth, once spoken softly, becomes background noise.
Lyrical, tense, and devastatingly human,
Under Every Tongue
is a literary thriller about how gossip becomes gospel, how decency turns to violence, and how silence can be both a wound and a weapon.
If words can build worlds, this story asks - what happens when they start to burn?
Perfect for fans of
Celeste Ng, Ian McEwan, and Donna Tartt
, this novel will stay under your skin long after the final page, whispering the same terrible question that haunts its town:
Who do we become when the truth stops mattering?