Are You Awake?

Product Information

They end up being partners who are trying to find out what they saw one night in an abandoned home in their neighborhood. Window gazing..........

As someone who has spent a lot of my professional life in care homes, my jaw did drop in response to what was going on in one home in the middle of the night. I can't quite imagine anyone getting away with it, but you never know. This book is quite entraining and gripping. 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. taking a bite of the juiciest, cheesiest, creamiest mac n cheese but the aftertaste is kraft dinner dry ass powder. Tim is a journalist who suffers from PTSD and Insomnia, since getting injured in the field. His partner, Alice has left him and he is on administrative leave from the paper he works for.

Featured Reviews

A few things I did NOT like about this book, please note that this is my opinion based on things to which I relate to and feel targeted with: first off the author is one of my favorite thriller writers. I am so excited to read another one of their books! This one did not disappoint. Overall it was an okay read, but I felt that as a lawyer Mary should have been a little more savvy than to go blindly into this and Tim, while being the best character in the book, was I felt under explored in his story. Mary is a mother of two children under the age of two. She feels like she hasn’t slept at all since her second was born.

The characters are conflicting. I like them, but not all of them. When I think of it, the flaws in them should make them feel more realistic, but some decisions did not appeal to me, which explains why I am not a big fan of the main characters. So sadly just a 3 star read for me I really wanted to like it more it had some funny moments and I think that’s what kept me reading till the end. I am disappointed that my level of enjoyment did not meet my expectations. Although I have always found the author's previous works enjoyable, I cannot include this one in my list of recommendations. Unfortunately, the story only works if the reader can buy into her all-consuming need to solve the mystery of the disappearing Samantha. And I couldn’t. There is no doubt that McGowan can tell a beguiling tale. Sadly, ‘Are You Awake’ is an exception. Well written but increasingly unbelievable as the narrative unfolds. Reading about breast feeding, crying children, food being thrown, and dirty nappys always bores me to tears as a woman who is childless by choice. And, the decisions she would make while her children were in tow would not win her any “mother of the year” awards. So, I found myself wanting to skim through half of the chapters for that reason.I kept really wanting something exciting and gripping to happen, but it didn’t; it was very disappointing. Claire McGowan is an accomplished writer of thrillers and the premise of ‘Are You Awake’ sounds promising. Two people, unable to sleep for very different reasons, believe that they see a missing girl being assaulted in the middle of the night. The police do not appear very interested. Unfortunately, it took me almost three weeks to finish this book and that just never happens. But I found that I wasn't invested in the characters, they were a bit odd and didn't match the tone. Although the two-year-old was a riot!

I plan to read more of this author's future works, given that historically, the writing style is both captivating and thrilling. Mary and Tim are neighbors who’ve never met. Neither of them sleep well, and they spend their days wishing to go to bed. Mary has 2 young children who are never quiet and keep her up all night (and an unsupportive jerk of a husband to boot). Tim can’t stop thinking about something tragic that happened in his past, and it keeps him up.

Member Reviews

My interest considerably diminished after completing half of it. I had expected something better. Although I understood a mother's fatigue, the plot went in a direction I could not relate to. Claire McGowan is a well-established author who penned her first book in her native, Rostrevor when she was only nine years old. When penning her first novel, McGowan was still in primary school, and she admits that the novel was not interesting at all. 19 years later, McGowan wrote her first novel, The Fall, which ensured that she made a name for herself in the Northern Ireland’s list of top notch writers. According to McGowan, her first novel, The Fall was completely a surprise to her because when penning it down, she completely had no idea that she was working on a crime fiction novel. This is mainly because Claire McGowan believed that crime novels were mainly whodunits and detective novels. However, later on, Claire McGowan discovered that there were so much involved in the crime fiction genre.