Laura J. Sillett – Let Me Sleep

A psychological thriller with a dash of dystopian fiction skillfully blended into this story made it a pretty different read for me. First up though the synopsis

He would do anything to remember. And even more to forget.

Tormented by nightmares of a screaming woman, Nico Jakes opens his eyes to an unfamiliar world.

Forced into hiding by a global war, a society has made its home underground. Suffering from psychological trauma, Nico learns that his lost memories hold the key to the survival of the entire community. Frustrated, confused, and under the watchful eye of his protective brother, Nico submits to an unconventional drug treatment to unearth a crucial secret, before an escaped traitor can exploit it.

But the descent into his mind also opens the flood gates to Nico’s past, bringing back forgotten lovers, enemies, and tragedy. With dreams warped by drugs and memories tainted by lies, Nico soon realises that he cannot trust anything, not even himself.

I thought this was a different type of book. A debut novel that explores the darker side of human nature when they are forced into survival mode. As well as identity and relationships.

The book manages to put the reader into Nico’s shoes, the main character, who is as disorientated as he could be and as his memories are released, bit by bit, we find that the timeline is not as clear-cut as it could be. I was a little confused myself at first but soon got into the stride of the book.

The unique angle is that as one memory is remembered it does have the possibility of changing what we think of as the past…meaning previous chapters. Very unusual but very intriguing way of creating a story. It did make for an intense and a very fluid book, which in turn has you flipping them pages as you have no idea of the ending.

An excellently written book with brilliant characters that are so real you feel like you are there. The way Laura J. Sillett has written it makes it a realistic but disorientating read. That’s what makes it so good.

Thanks to Anna Cater of Random Things Tours and Laura J. Sillett for the copy of the book.