I know from previous experience that before you start a C.L Taylor book to clear you’re diary and get comfortable, as you won’t want to be parted from you’re book!!

What a beginning
“If you’re reading this then I am no longer alive” You had me totally enthralled from this point to the end. I devoured every word afraid to look away incase I missed a single thing!!

Anna is driving back from a company team building event, when she is involved in a car crash which kills 2 colleagues and cripples another.

She moves to Scotland and takes a job at the Bay View Hotel on the Island Of Rum. She is hoping moving away will cure her insomnia, but someone thinks justice has escaped Anna and they want revenge!!

When a new group of guests check in to the hotel strange things happen that makes Anna think that her stalker has followed her to Scotland and they want to harm her!!

I love how you are are drawn straight into this book. The characters staying in the hotel come to life with their vivid descriptions. I actually felt like I was staying there, her writing style is amazing in the way that at times when the story was creepy I was afraid for the characters and found myself shouting “watch out” as if I was actually there!!

Reading this was bittersweet as I was loving the book and really didn’t want to finish it, but I was also desperate to find out the ending.

10 out of 10 for this compelling book with lots of twists and surprises along the way. The tension builds up and I found myself changing my opinion on who the culprit was after every chapter. All the guests seemed to have their own secrets that they are desperate to keep hidden.

Desperately seeking C.L Taylor’s next book.

Thank you to Netgalley for my precious copy in exchange for a review.

A thriller surrounding Anna, who after a traumatic accident uproots herself and works in a hotel in a remote location....twists and turns.....who ‘dun it? Whose doing it? I didn’t guess but I sure did enjoy the journey. Thank you

Sleep – C. L. Taylor

Well what can I say about this novel? It wasn’t quite what I was expected that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it as I definitely did.

After a team building weekend there’s a fatally serious road traffic accident. Anna struggles to deal with the serious injuries and deaths of her work colleagues lives. She blames herself for looking in the review mirror to shout at the passengers in the back seat of the car. The blame is reinforced in her mind due to feeling physically and mentally exhausted due to her insomnia leaving her struggling with sleep deprivation Everywhere she goes she thinks someone is watching her, there’s the note left on her windscreen and this is just the start of things happening to her

Needing a new start in her life following the breakdown of her relationship with Alex she take a job in the remote island of Rum part of the Inner Hebrides. Sadly what comes next is almost enough to tip her over the edge. On arrival to Run she and David her boss gather together that weeks guests and head to the hotel. Within her first two days there’s a horrendous storm that causes them to be stranded on the island without electricity, phone or wifi. During this her boss David dies and then to make matters even worse for her other unusual things start to happen.

The seven guests all have their own issues and reasons for being on Rum, there’s secrets and lies all the way to the end. Between them the guests all have come under suspicion of being the person to want her dead. I won’t go into those though so no more spoilers here.

I do have to tell you that at some point in the book I wanted to give every single one of them a shake and tell them to give their head a wobble. I managed to work out whom the perpetrator was about three quarters of the way through it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of it.


Read for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and Avon Harper Collins

Sleep by C.L. Taylor

Anna has been tormented by insomnia ever since surviving a terrible road accident. She finds her life difficult to cope with in the aftermath and, to make things even worse, she can’t help thinking that she is being followed. Or is this just guilt pursuing her every wakeful thought? Anna is determined to escape and so she heads about as far away as she can. She takes a job as a receptionist in the small Bay View Hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum. Her job will be to assist the manager David with the guests who arrive to take part in hikes across the island’s glorious peaks. But, along with the first group of seven tourists, arrives a storm that will soon cut the hotel off from the rest of the island, while phone and internet signals will also fail.

Trapped within the hotel, it’s not long before the personalities emerge of each of the guests and Anna realises that she is surrounded by secrets. She wasn’t the only one who fled to the island to escape a past. But, just when she thinks it couldn’t get any worse, it really does and Anna must face the terrible truth that her stalker has followed her to Rum.

Sleep has a fantastic premise and, after starting it late one evening, I was pulled right in and only emerged with 60% of it read in one sitting. It undoubtedly tells a compelling story as it moves between our heroine Anna and the perspectives of others in her life, notably her ex-partner, and in her story. This sort of structure usually moves a story along and it does a good job of doing that here.

I was definitely enticed by the setting on the island. I’m very partial to mysteries set on islands, as my reading this year attests. This does, though, mean that this is a rather popular setting for novels and I’m not sure that Sleep treats the stormy landscape as well as others that I’ve read. And unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the second half of the novel as much as the first. I’ve been thinking about why that is and I think it’s mostly because the story is, for me, overladen with red herrings and twists. It’s almost like it’s working too hard and that it’s also playing with us. I know that most people have really loved this book and so I think this may be something to do with me and my attitude towards psychological novels. I’ve just read too many of them and I’m suspicious of their games. I won’t give anything away but I also really didn’t like the final page.

Nevertheless, C.L. Taylor writes well and I think that Sleep will be a popular read, especially for those who have read fewer psychological thrillers! It’s certainly gripping and extremely hard to put down.

Other review
The Missing

Ms Taylor's writing easily draws the reader into the classic crime thriller scenario of an isolated venue full of suspicious characters. In the end I wasn't wholly convinced by the denouement, but it was fun getting there.!
Thank you to netgalley and Avon books for an advance copy of this book.

Sleep is a great play on a waking nightmare, as Anna struggles to escape a past that has her feeling trapped with guilt.
This book touched upon deeper themes of the culpability of a crime in relation to the circumstances surrounding it. Sleep drew other characters from the aftermath of an accident, but for me it was the end that drove the story to a solid four stars.

note - Amazon review will not be available until after the 18th March, when the publisher allows the review to be published.

I have read every read that Cally has written so far and they are up there with some of the best i have read. When i saw the hype of Sleep under the #daretosleep on twitter i knew it was going to give me very little sleep! I was luckily approved on Netgalley for this in exchange for a fair review.



Anna cant sleep, and when she does sleep and breaks her insomnia her night terrors kick in. After a horrible ordeal, a break up and constant exhaustion, Anna tries to escape her demons and heads away to a remote Scottish island of Rum. A receptionist at a small hotel, accommodation, simple work and a new start is all Anna wants.



However, been on a remote island has its downsides and when a major storm hits leaving the newest bunch of guests all slightly stranded, and with deep dark secrets - a lot of lies and finally murder Anna begins to ask herself - who even are these people? And who is after Anna?!



Sleep was absolutely unreal, it kept me totally gripped and i wanted to sack off all my day to day errands and just read. I couldn't figure Anna out, i had so many questions as to what was actually happening - why couldn't she sleep? who was after Anna? Why ? I certainly felt for Anna with all that she had been through but as a reader i was also questioning was she believable.



I found myself gripped, trying to figure out the characters and trying to get 3 steps ahead and get answers quicker than they were coming, but i just couldn't. I was not expecting what we got, and then bam! even the last page shocked me to the core. This was thrilling, page turning and dark. Considering i was actually struggling to sleep last night - i ended up finishing this and then i totally couldn't sleep! I loved the style the way it flipped from different characters to obituary's. Her descriptions were beautiful and harrowing, the weather felt alive within the pages.



Absolutely bloody brilliant - i loved every single page of this!

I would suggest you pre order this now ready for the release!!

What a great book - C.L.Taylor has once again written a unique story that kept me gripped. I read it in one sitting and loved every minute of it. A superb psychological who done it.
I cannot give enough praise. The characters were so real and I kept tossing about undecided who was the bad guy and why.
Can’t wait for the next book by such a talented writer.

What a thrilling read. This one kept me on my toes the entire time. The characters are well-developed and the author keeps us intrigued. This is exactly the type of thriller I enjoy, one that keeps you guessing right until the end.

After a traumatizing experience in London where Anna was involved in a car crash and two of her passengers/ colleagues did not survive and a third passenger was seriously injured,she feels ,apart from feeling guilty, as if someone is stalking her and very soon paranoia and insomnia sets in. So she decides to leave the Metropolis and move to Rum,a small Scottish isle, where she is helping David,the owner, to run a small country hotel. A group of 7 hikers arrive in this charming hotel and they all bring their own secrets and problems. When a storm hits the island and the hotel is completely cut off things start to become a bit uncomfortable. Anna feels more than insecure and is convinced that her stalker is in the neighbourhood...
It starts very slowly and I had a hard time getting into this story. Of course,the fact that I wasn't particularly attracted to Anna and that her fate wasn't a major concern to me,well it didn't exactly help. Somehow this story had all the right building stones,(storm, invisible threats ,isolated house,strangers meeting each other for the first time...)but it just lacked something. The different POV didn't help and their were some strange passages for instance:" He's dead", I whisper again. Her eyes fill with tears."Her being the whisperer... I know that this is a 4 to 5 star rating on most major sites but somehow it had all the promises but it just didn't fulfil them...

Wow what an utterly compulsive read. Yet again the amazing C. L. Taylor has written something both unputdownable and simply brilliant.

I always tend to find I read this author's books in one sitting so had been bidding my time to start it when i could give it my full attention. What better than on a 12 hours flight to Thailand.

I think it took perhaps 2 and a half hours tops to devour Sleep. No whether I'll get any sleep myself after reading this is to be seen as it was slightly unsettling.

Most of the book is from Anna's viewpoint but what had baffled me initially was how some of the other threads would combine properly.

Any book that starts with a letter to be read in case of death, naming the most likely suspects was always going to attract my attention.

There is something rather claustrophobic about the majority of this story set in a cut off Scottish Isle.

Everybody named on that first page of the book could potentially be out to get Anna or have reason to be up to no good. There are many secrets that will surprise over the course of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed and was hooked for the entirety of this story and can only commend the author on writing another superb book.

If you love suspense, intrigue, guessing, or generally enjoy psychological dramas then this is completely worth reading.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Loved this book so much. Told from different characters view and loads of unexpected twists. I will be reading more by this author.

I have read and loved all of Cl Taylor’s books this one was no different.
It follows Anna who takes herself off to the remote island of Rum to rebuild her life. She starts work in the only hotel on the island and the guests arrive and things start to happen.
The book is very eerie and atmospheric. Each chapter is a character which I like when reading a book, it makes the story easy to follow. It took me a little time to get into as there were so many characters to find out about but I wanted to know more anout each one and couldn’t put the book down.
A real page turner.
Loved it

This my first C.L. Taylor book and I hope it won’t be the last, I’m sure it won’t.

A real page turner, you are as dazed and confused as Anna at times. Reminiscent at times of Agatha Christie with the claustrophobic isolated setting and the cast of many injured souls, this book will be a fantastic success. Virtually all the characters have motives so be careful of blind alleys !

Well written with good character development and an inspired choice of remote setting this book will keep you up into the wee small hours

Another great read by CL Taylor! This one did an excellent job of directing my attention to one suspect after another, constantly keeping me on my toes so that I didn't figure out what was going on until (I suspect) the author wanted me to. As a study of guilt and insomnia, it also works very well, and the very last chapter gives a chilling little twist. Very good.

Wow ! This book will have you hooked from the first page and you will just want to keep reading till the last page.
Anna is driving home from a team building weekend when she is momentarily distracted and crashes her car leaving two colleagues dead and one paralyzed. Although she is not guilty of causing the accident her life falls apart and she takes a job on Rhum as a hotel receptionist. Guests arrive but a storm blows in with devastating consequences. All of the guests seem to be hiding something but someone is after Anna and is determined for her to sleep - forever.

Seven strangers cut off from the rest of world. What could possibly go wrong?

Sleepless nights are something I’m quite familiar with. Unlike Anna, I’m not riddled with guilt though, and nobody’s out there to leave me creepy messages and creepy Shakespeare quotes from Macbeth. “To die, to sleep.” Not very reassuring.

The story opens with an accident that claims the lives of two people, while Anna walks away relatively fine. She found not guilty in court, but that doesn’t stop her obsessing about her part in the tragedy, suffering from nightmares, insomnia, and a relentless stalker who leaves chilling messages wherever she goes. Her relationship was already on rocky grounds, and when the inevitable break up comes, she decides to leave everything, including her stalker behind, and moves to the island of Rum. In the book the island has 31 inhabitants, but according to what I found out online, there are actually only 22 of them. I personally love quiet places, but this might be a tad too much.

Anna is only on the island for about two weeks, when the seven guests show up at the hotel where she works. All fine and dandy, until the weather changes and the guests are confined to the hotel. Soon enough weird shit starts happening. Was there another death quote written on the window? Or did she just imagine it? Do these people behave strangely because they are bored, or do they have more sinister motives? Amid the secrets, lies and deception Anna is slowly losing her mind. When a storm cuts them off not only from the mainland but the rest of the island, emotions run high. The paranoia is palpable, and suddenly everyone’s suspicious.

The story is told mainly by Anna, but there are a few chapters involving other characters from the mainland, just to throw you off the scent! They complement the events on the island perfectly, and there are plenty of surprises throughout the whole book.

Sleep is a brilliantly written, suspenseful thriller with a great cast of characters and a beautiful but wild setting.

A real page-turner.
An isolated hotel on a remote Scottish isle, a collection of guests with their own issues to deal with and a storm that cuts them off from everyone. The perfect setting for a creepy tension-filled story.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication. It might not stand the test of re-reading as it’s fairly clear who’s involved once we’ve overlooked the obvious false trails set for us, but it was good fun at the time.
Anna was driving when a lorry collided with her car, killing two passengers. Anna feels guilty as she was driving, and she’s plagued by the fact that family members of those that died blame her.
When she escapes to the isle of Rum it’s to take on a job as receptionist at a hotel. It should be a new start, but it seems someone’s stalking her and they’re determined she won’t survive. The question is, which of the guests is it.
While I don’t think the identity of the attempted killer was that well-hidden, the story was well-paced and entertaining.

This is my first book by this author and it won't be the last. I loved everything about it from the Christie cast of characters to the unguessable plot. Full review to follow. I think it will be a favourite read of 2019 and a sure hit for this writer.

I'm a fan of C.L. Taylor and was really excited to read her new book.
This is a fast paced gripping psychological thriller about a woman escaping a tragedy only to realize that the past had caught up with her with deadly consequences.

Thanks #Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for a chance to read this book.