Fiction Review: Sleep

Blurb:

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…

Related Post: Fiction Review - The Silent Patient

Review:

Quality of Writing  ♥♥♥♥♥

Originality  ♥♥♥♥

Plot  ♥♥♥♥♥

Setting  ♥♥♥♥♥

Character ♥♥♥♥♥

Overall  ♥♥♥♥♥

After a fatal car crash in which 2 of her colleagues are left dead and one paralysed, Anna breaks up with her boyfriend and moves up to a remote island in Scotland. Working as an assistant to hotel manager on the island, Anna thinks this will be her big break from her stressful life in England. 

However, a flurry of creepy messages and quotes about 'sleep' makes her believe that someone wants her dead in revenge for the death of her two colleagues. Little does she know that moving to Scotland may just be a big mistake. After a storm on the island cuts all connection to mainland and leaves the guests of the hotel stranded, things just go from bad to worst - because whoever is after her is trapped on the island with Anna.

The idea of being stranded on an island with someone who is trying to kill you may not be the most original idea - but who cares!? C.L Taylor is an amazing writer and whatever she writes will always thrill me. This book is her newest release and the first to be published in hardback which is super exciting. The quality of her writing is fantastic - it was the eerie vibe that did it for me and her suspense scenes are actually quite frightening (I was quite scared throughout the book - eek!). All her characters are so well-developed throughout and I loved how the main character, Anna, kept trying to guess which of the guest her stalker could be. She was eventually suspicious of everyone, even a 15 year old girl. I loved the sequence of events - how things got darker and more tense as the storm around them built up. I also loved the description of the setting - the little island with its rocky mountains and cliffs - it just made the story so much more atmospheric. The little twist at the very end sent shivers right up my body.

This book is brilliant because it can be seen both as a plot-driven AND character-driven novel - every character had their purpose and all also were so believable. There are some POV changes which made the story more intriguing - I actually liked this aspect even though I'm not generally too keen on switching POVs too often.

  Overall, a whopping 5 stars from me!

You can buy Sleep from:

Amazon
Waterstones