This was a very clever and engrossing story which kept me guessing all the way through. Well written characters, very readable, each time I put it down I looked forward to going back to it. With so many people writing books you would think that all the ideas had been taken and done before but this book gives a unique twist on the suspense thriller which I congratulate the author on achieving. Definite 5 stars.

Oh my goodness!! I LOVED this booked. Had me gripped right from the beginning I just could not put it down. And what a twist at the end! Fab book!

Thank you, NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, and One More Chapter for providing a digital ARC.

The beginning starts out immediately intense and sets you up with all the characters you need to know. Lily is a newly single mother who gets a notification on her cellphone that somebody has broken into her back yard. The police are called but they are unable to do anything because overall, no harm was done. They believe it was her estranged husband, but Lily isn’t so sure.

The next day Lily wakes up in a replica of her house down to every detail. It is clear to Lily that whoever has replicated their house has been in it many times. Even her junk drawer is full of the same miscellaneous items. After the initial shock of being in a replica of her house and the captor communicating with her, the book starts to get…boring. Small peaks of intensity occur but nothing is nail-biting worthy. The dialogue between Lily and Maisie makes you forget how young she is so some of her actions are confusing and messy.

The ending felt like it was originally meant for a book with completely different characters. The ending would have been better if we could have learned more about her captor’s past before the last few chapters of the book. Maybe a swap dialogue style would have aided in the reader's understanding of what was about to happen. Some of these plot twists were revealed so quickly and then dropped for the next plot twist. There could have been more development with them that would have made the ending more satisfying.

I loved the idea of this book the synopsis is incredible and intriguing but the book itself did not live up to my expectations. I would recommend this book to a friend with a disclaimer to push through some of the boring parts. I read a lot of thrillers and I recognize that this can make you desensitized to plot twist because you always know something crazy is going to happen. Even though the plot twist came one after another it did help start pushing the book forward again. I was not satisfied with the ending but I did feel that it left me as intrigued overall as the beginning of the book originally had.

Great new story line - waking up in your own apartment, but you are not really in your own apartment....the mystery and thrill factor the author introduces keeps the reader guessing without wanting to put the book down. Engrossing, mysterious, concerning, thrilling - all terms describing a vibrant thriller. Only to be recommended.

To be honest, I can't fully decide on my rating on this book. I enjoyed it and sped through reading it - while my heart was pounding - but it was pretty messy. I'm hoping the messy part is because I received an advanced reader copy and it still needs to be edited.

From the beginning, it grips you and makes your heart stop. It's chilling and creepy, and you can't just read one chapter. The end of each chapter had a good hook, and I had to force myself to put it down.

There were just a lot of times where the writing was underdeveloped. Sometimes, I felt like something was repeated (it seemed accidental, not intentional), or the description of movements didn't fully explain everything. Toward the end, I was having a hard time picturing everything that was happening because it was so fast-paced and the apartment surroundings wasn't matching up with how I had imagined it previously.

The daughter, Maisie, was annoying and poorly behaved. She never listened and it just kept getting them into trouble. That part was frustrating for me. She was supposed to be 5, but most of the time she seemed older.

I also felt like the ending was random and didn't really add up.

*Thank you to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK, and One More Chapter for the ARC, for which I have given an honest and unbiased review*

twisted, pulse-increasing book that is part thriller, part psychological masterpiece.

There were times that I found myself literally on the edge of my seat....stressful, but in a good way. Definitely a few twists, turns, and surprises and it kept me engrossed until the end. And wow, what an ending.

While You Slept started off very promisingly. Lily Russell is at work when she checks the security app for her home on her phone and sees a man standing in her garden. What makes this even more disturbing, he is wearing a mask with her daughters face printed on it. Lily lives alone with her daughter Maisie after an ugly divorce and custody’s battle. She doesn’t want to believe her ex could be responsible but cannot imagine who would do such a thing. Police are called and her sister comes by but no conclusions can be reached.
The following morning she awakens to a terrible headache and feeling sick. When she gets up to check in Maisie she discovers that she is not in her home, someone has moved them into an exact replica of they’re apartment during the middle of the night.
This premise was intriguing but the story itself missed the mark for me. There were several characters introduced briefly that had no purpose. I also like when clues have been part of the story so the reader has an aha! Moment when the motive is revealed. This was nothing the reader could relate to because there was no backstory at all. There are other areas where the story just didn’t work but I can’t discuss them without giving away part of the storyline.
There are readers who will enjoy this book, it just wasn’t for me.
Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my opinion.

Lily loves her daughter Maisie and tries to keep her safe from harm including from Maisie's dad, Ewan after their relationship fell apart.



So when she wakes up with her daughter in a home that looks but isn't theirs with everything replicated, she fears for their lives as their stalker has stolen them while they slept, but do they know their captor as they're watched by CCTV and messages and called just who is it?



This book had a great plot twist at the end with two random characters coming in and blowing the plot to pieces which soon added up and made sense completely the setting was bizarre and I wouldn't have thought of it at all but it added to the guessing and mystery of the story and worked well.



If you like to be kept on your toes this mystery is for you!



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Thank you Netgallery for giving me the opportunity to read this book. R. J. Parker has written a gripping book, that I was not able to put down. Lily and Maisie was taken from their home and imprisoned and kidnapped and try to fight for their life and trying to escape from this nightmare. I would recommend this book as a most read for this summer.

If the blurb of While You Slept grabbed your attention, I’ll not ruin the suspense by giving you yet another summary. But what I will tell you is that this story is like riding a roller coaster…with each turn of the page, it’s like the next click of the car on the ascent up…up…up…causing your heart to race and not quite sure just how terrifying the descent will be or how many twists and turns you’ll face…until the very end…

While the ending did come to quick and abrupt stop, I found the plot nail-biting and frightening. Would recommend to fans of this genre!

**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

This story will keep you guessing. Do not trust anyone. I loved it! It was just what I needed during all the craziness.

I can't even review this one without spoilers, so let's just say for the spoiler-free comments: I hated this so much.

Okay! Spoilers ahead. Trigger warning for rape.

Lily is checking her security camera from work one day and sees someone standing in her garden wearing a mask of her young daughter. Creepy. She, of course, calls the police to check everything out and despite a creep being in her yard, there's nothing else amiss. Filler, filler, her and her daughter go to bed but when they wake up the next morning, they're in a replica of their home.

The concept was interesting! I don't recall ever reading something with this plot concept, so I was intrigued. Of course, you have to suspend disbelief for a story like this but hey! It's quarantimes, let's do it!

Y'all... where do I start. Roughly 85% of the book happens in this replica home, and despite a few conversations with their captor and a sighting of a random person, nothing happens. Around the 80% mark, they found a way to escape (an alternate entrance/exit), and then there's another probably 10% of total book length describing them trying to run away, but it could've been SEVERAL pages shorter and conveyed the exact same scene.

The reason for their captivity? Lily's father was a psychologist and took a patient of his captive for nearly a year. During that time, he was raping the patient, and eventually impregnates her (with the man who was assisting in this plot - the man from the garden). Lily's ex-husband eventually shows up on-scene, they kill the woman, the man is injured but alive, and Lily, her daughter, and ex-husband all make it out alive.

The last paragraphs of the story is Lily thinking back over the times in the replica house where she was likely drugged, and wonders if her half brother was raping her the way her father raped his captive - we end on her taking a test, no result.

I can't. I sat through all this nonsense, which was mostly unnecessary filler - literally if you cut this book down to the NECESSARY pages that develop the plot, it could've been maybe 30% of the content that made the cut - and then you LEAVE US ON A CLIFFHANGER? I haven't been this angry at a book in a while, so that's something!

This. Book.
Imagine waking up in what seems like your bed, your house, but as you explore further it turns out you and your daughter were taken and are now in an exact replica of most of your house - right down to a look alike cat - while being watched and locked in! I could NOT put this book down! It was so different, and had me on the edge of my pillow. Highly recommend!

A rather slight thriller. The build up to the capture of the Lily and her daughter is so quick that the characters aren’t fully formed and we have little understanding on their background. The twist at the end comes out of the blue, you literally couldn’t have seen it coming. It makes for a rather unsatisfactory and rushed ending, and no sense of satisfaction in having guessed who the captors are and why they are holding them.

This book started as off the scale creepy and I was intrigued and hooked for the first hundred pages. It's hard not to get emotionally involved by the beginning of this story. A man appears in Lily's back garden while she is at work and she is alerted to the danger by an app on her phone. What really gets Lily's attention and mine is that the intruder is wearing a mask and when she looks closely its the face of her daughter Maisey. The masked intruder even had the audacity to wave at her.
Lily calls the police but as the intruder has gone by the time the police arrive she goes to bed that night worried and confused.
Fast forward to the following day - when Lily and Maisey wake up they think they are waking up in their home. Think again! they are actually waking up in an exact replica of their home down to the bedroom,clothes, ornaments and what they eat in the fridge. They find out in horror that the man in the garden is holding them captive.
So as you would expect I am now invested in these characters and I am wanting to know what the hell is going on. Unfortunately I felt that the story lost it appeal over the next hundred pages. The dialogue is completely wrong, the five year old, Maisey behaves in a way that no five year old I have ever met would and the ending felt like it had been plucked out of thin air.
The action descriptions at the end of the book are really confusing and hard to understand and the reason behind "the who done it" was underdeveloped and unanswered for me.
Having said all of that, the premise of the book is thrilling and with some amendments would make a great thriller.
I really wanted to like the whole of this book because of the goosebumps you got from the first chapters, I wanted more from the kidnappers and the main characters. Great idea, unique and creepy. But was highly repetitive and poor resolution.
Thank you for the advanced copy.

This book was a completely impulsive request from NetGalley just based on the description of the book and I was not disappointed in this. I love this style of thriller books which is very Criminal Minds-esque because it is all about having to play along with a deranged mind in order to figure out how you can escape. And this book really delivered.

Lily's home intruder app sets off an alarm for her one day and it shows her a picture of a man in her back garden wearing her daughter's face as a mask. She is, understandably, very freaked out and calls the police. It only gets worse when she and Maisie wake up the next morning in a house that looks like theirs but isn't at all. Everything has been replicated but they can't leave and every move is being watched.

This was an extremely tense book. It flew by so quickly for me and it felt extremely well-paced. Sometimes I get a little fed up of thriller books because I'm fed up with the building of the mystery, I just want to know what the big twist is at the end and end up skipping half the book and reading the last chapter to find out what happened. But not so with this book! We got to the action very quickly, no spending a quarter of the book getting to know the characters before the action starts (always the most boring part for me) and when things started to happen, they happened at a good pace.

I sympathised with Lily right off the bat. The way she talked about her ex-husband and her worry over her daughter was good and made it obvious that while she wasn't the perfect person or mother, she did care about her daughter most of all. I would have liked to have seen more of Maisie's character, especially in the house, but I know that would have been hard to fit in. I did like the bits where Maisie's understanding of the situation and Lily's understanding didn't match up because child and adult and I would have liked to have seen more of Maisie acting like a child outside of the scenes where they are trying to get out.

The bit where this book let me down was the twist. When there is a twist, I want there to be some more foreshadowing that we got in this book. I'm not a fan of these twists where the author is obviously trying to shock you so much that they don't mention it at all and to RJ Parker's credit, he didn't seem to be trying to do that. However, apart from a throwaway line, we didn't get anything else about it in the first half of the book. Truth be told, I thought it was one of two other characters due to certain things mentioned at the start and the end of the book, but neither of those options came about. There was also a character mentioned about halfway through the book who wasn't mentioned before and wasn't mentioned afterwards, so I was a little confused about their purpose in this story and didn't particularly like the addition.

That said, this is definitely one I would recommend for this summer when you want something quick to read.

4 stars!

This book is rather disturbing, I’m not sure if I will be able to get a good night’s rest the coming days.

When Lily sees a man in het yard wearing a mask of her daughter Maisie’s face she is disturbed an rushes home. After going to sleep she wakes up in what seems like her bedroom, but something is off. She is groggy and blames the glass of wine she had, but it doesn’t feel right. Feels more disturbing. It takes a little while until she realises she and her daughter are kidnapped and held in a prison that is similar to their home. Including all the little details of cups, toothbrushes and clothing. As Lily and Maisie try and escape you also try to figure out who is behind all this. Half way through the book I thought I knew, but I didn’t. I didn’t see the ending coming. And I am not sure if I am happy with it, but it some how does fit the story.

I am not sure if I liked the writing style, but I did like the story. Somehow did feel a bit like the movie Room, but I guess that happens quickly when a woman is held captive somewhere. I found it an enjoyable, but disturbing story.

Lily Russell is alerted that there is a stranger in her garden wearing a mask of her 5 year old daughter Maisie's face. Lily calls the police and the next day wakes up safe in her home. Only, this isn't her home, its a direct replica with no escape. Lily and Maisie are being held captive and someone is watching them.

So, up until about half way I was honestly LOVING this book. It had me hooked. Who was holding them captive? Where were they? and what was going to happen to them? My only qualm was with the representation of the character Maisie. I had to ask myself several times how old she was meant to be because, one minute she is portrayed as a child unable to climb stairs one leg at a time, and the next she is able to deceive and fool her captors with improvised conversation guided through reading and understanding her mothers facial expressions. I found myself seriously disliking Maisie throughout, but on reflection, I think that this was due to her poor presentation.

But, where the book totally lost me was the ending. I am still trying to comprehend the sloppy mess that I just finished. When I tell you the ending came out of nowhere, OMG I cant even understand how it was decided upon. Its as if it was just plucked out of thin air. I feel like there were so many solid potential alternatives with the few other characters that were introduced in the earlier chapters. Also, there is a lot of action towards the end and I always find that really hard to follow personally. I get lost/bored listening to how someone is trying to untie their hands behind their back or whatever, its just not for me.

But, I don't want to be too negative here because the premise of the book I think is brilliantly chilling and gripping and would make for a wonderful thriller with a bit of tweaking.

While You Slept by R.J. Parker had so much potential, but it fell short for me. The premise of the book was great, I just felt like it was lacking in too many places. I felt the main characters not well rounded. At times I felt the child Maise was more of the adult then her mom Lily. There is also too many places that go into way too many unnecessary details, while other places need more background. The ending seemed too rushed, and a WTH just happened moment that left me scratching my head. Overall, an okay read. Just feel it could be cleaned up and lengthened a little to fill plot holes.

Thank you to Netgallery for the free digital copy in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. All opinions are my own.

Nice character development, pacing and plot. I think this was well balanced. It had the creepy factor mixed with great imagery for a thrilling tale.