Are You Awake?

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Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer for giving me the opportunities to read and review this book. Apart from having the theme of pregnancy, this book also has the theme of missing babies, which proved to be both compelling and disturbing at the same time. I enjoyed reading it over the course of a few weeks (on and off) and it succeeded in keeping me interested in the book and the fate of the characters. But with her marriage under strain and the police on their tail, Mary begins to doubt her own mind…and Tim’s.

But are they really just crazy and imagining things in their sleep deprived state or did they really see something- it keeps your interest and make you want to read to the end tho I did guess fairy early on what had happened but there was enough twists in the story to question yourself and there was slight twist in conclusion I misread.Mary has two young children and is awake through the night, not remembering the last time she fully slept. Both of them believe they have seen a missing girl whilst they were awake in the middle of the night but they struggle to get anyone to listen so decide to investigate for themselves. Claire McGowan has really cornered the market with her one off crime thrillers and this is another one well worthy of 5 stars.

This is a wickedly clever premise that features a mother of two (Mary) who is on maternity leave and of course like every mother needs a good night's Sleep. Well I had trouble staying awake reading this…I put this book down a lot and had a hard time finishing it. I have chosen not to have kids as I like my sleep, my time and everything that comes with not having kids.There were times that Mary’s questioning left me unsettled because her thoughts weren’t indicative of her career mindset. Was it a figment of their imagination, or was this a result of some kind of sleep induced hallucination? When these two sleepless people witness something concerning in the dead of night, perhaps linked to a recent crime, the unlikely pair - both experiencing their own form of desperation - come together to investigate. Ok so this could've been a guilty pleasure read but McGowan punched above the belt by making Mary a lawyer who didn't know the law from her left foot.

A wuick and easy read that was gripping, twisty and unpredictable and kept me guessing all the way through. However the likelihood of two randomers uncovering the truth before the police did require a significant suspension of disbelief - and Tim’s discovery of the final location in the few seconds he had to look at a (conveniently unlocked) computer screen was a little too convenient. What a great read this is ,two people who have trouble sleeping see something untoward in the dead of night and in doing so a series of events follow which will change their lives . This is a really gripping thrilling, full of twists and turns and a believable partnership of Mary and Tim that I'd love to see more of in future novels.The disappearance of Samantha seems clear enough at first but halfway through the story there is a massive plot twist that had me reeling. They see news reports of a missing woman who was last seen in this area and become convinced m the woman hey saw is her.