I’M A HUGE FAN OF C.L. TAYLOR, HAVING LOVED ALL OF HER PREVIOUS NOVELS THAT I’VE READ. SO, I WAS REALLY EXCITED TO GET A SPOT ON THE AUDIOBOOK TOUR, WITH A REVIEW OF HER NEWEST RELEASE, SLEEP. READ ON TO FIND OUT WHAT I THOUGHT!
Title: Sleep
Author: C.L. Taylor
Publisher: Avon Books
[SYNOPSIS]
All Anna wants is to be able to sleep. But crushing insomnia, terrifying night terrors and memories of that terrible night are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…
To escape her past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum, but when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare.
Each of the guests have a secret but one of them is lying – about who they are and why they’re on the island. There’s a murderer staying in the Bay View hotel. And they’ve set their sights on Anna.
Seven strangers. Seven secrets. One deadly lie.
Someone’s going to sleep and never wake up…
[MY REVIEW]
Sleep is packed with eeriness, atmosphere and plenty of characters who aren’t quite who they say they are.
Anna is a great main character; she’s likable but not compeletely trustworthy. I couldn’t always work out whether I felt sorry for her or a little wary of her. As we follow her descent into anxiety and despair, following a road accident that she, as the driver, survives but two of her colleagues are killed and another is paralysed, we see her start to unravel, mainly through lack of sleep. As she ‘escapes’ to a remote Scottish Island, her past seems to have followed her.
I loved the way that the reader knows more than Anna, so we spot warning signs she does not. However, not everything follows the path I thought it would, and there are plenty of surprises along the way – some more believable than others, but all really entertaining and gripping. It has a definite Agatha Christie ‘And then there were none’ feel to it – the ‘whodunnit’ element, the enclosed and isolated space, and the feeling that someone among the main group of characters are not who they say they are.
The audiobook version, narrated by Clare Corbett, is great at getting across the tension and eeriness that Anna increasingly feels, and the isolation that envlopes her on that remote island. Clare is a really enthusiastic narrator and I think the scenes that needed to be listened to ‘with a bang’ were, so I’d happily read more books narrated by her! This book definitely translates well to audiobook and, though I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks (I tend to read more), this was ideal for my commute because I could listen whilst I walked to work. Result!
I don’t want to say anything more about the plot itself because this story is best read with minimum forewarning – the synopsis said enough to get me intrigued and, from the very first page to the last, I was hooked. Another excellent release from one of my favourite suspense/ thriller writers.
[RATING: 5/5]
Many thanks to the Sabah at Avon Books for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review, and for inviting me onto the blog tour!
[ABOUT THE AUTHOR]
C.L. Taylor lives in Bristol with her partner and young son. She is a four times Sunday Times bestseller and her books have hit the number one spots on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play. Cally has a degree in Psychology, with particular interest in abnormal and criminal Psychology.
She also loves knitting, Dr Who, Sherlock, Great British Bake Off and Margaret Atwood and blames Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected for her love of a dark tale
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