Originally published: 4 April 2019

Author: C L Taylor

Genre:  Psychological Thriller

Page count: 368

Reading dates: 7-10 April 2019

Having previously read The Fear by C L Taylor, when the chance came to read Sleep, I jumped at the chance.

If you’re reading this I am no longer alive. Someone has been stalking me for the last three months and, if I am dead, it wasn’t an accident.

Anna and her colleagues are on the way back from a team building weekend when a truck crashes into them, killing two of her colleagues, paralysing another and seriously injuring Anna.  Despite it not being Anna’s fault, she feels an enormous amount of guilt for the accident.  She develops insomnia and night terrors and isn’t coping at all.  Her boyfriend is less than supportive and when Anna starts feeling like she is being watched and is getting threatening messages talking about sleep, she decides she needs to get away.

She manages to get a job in the Bay View hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum.  When the first 7 guests arrive it soon becomes obvious that each has their secrets.  As a storm rages outside and the guests are trapped in the hotel, it becomes apparent that one of them is lying about who they are and why they are really on the island.  One of them is a murderer and Anna’s life is in danger!

This reminded me of an classic Agatha Christie whodunit novel!  With seven guests, all of whom have secrets, this book is full of red herrings, twists and turns.  Once Anna realises that one of the guests has travelled to the island to kill her (she assumes in revenge for the accident), this book moves at a cracking pace.  I have to say I thought I’d figured it all out quite early on and was a little disappointed but nope!  I got it completely wrong.

It is claustrophobic and scary – once the storm kicks in, the telephone lines and Wi-Fi go down and the roads become flooded, there is no way out of the hotel or indeed off the island and I felt a real sense of threat for Anna.  This was a quick and exciting read – C L Taylor has done it again!

With thanks to Sabah at Avon Books for inviting me to be on the tour and supplying me with an ARC of the book.  Be sure to check out the other stops below…

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.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/callytaylor
Website: http://www.callytaylor.co.uk/cltaylorbookclub.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CallyTaylorAuthor