I thought While You Slept started off well. After seeing a man in their garden and reporting it to the police, Lily and her daughter Maisie wake up the next morning in an exact replica of their home. They’re being held by the same man. A great start as you feel you’re in for a tense thriller of a book. However, Lily’s character soon grated on me. Her daughter is five years old yet she’s speaking to her and asking her to carry out tasks as if she’s much older. Also there’s no back story to Lily until the very end of the book which felt slightly rushed. Having read Room I think I was expecting much more. Thank you to NetGalley, One More Chapter and the author for the chance to review.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
If you had ever wondered what it would be like to find your child and yourself trapped in a house that looks exactly like your house down to the photos in the family album on the bookshelf, then this book is for you! This book will keep you up at night in order not only to finish this crazy story, but also because it will make you uneasy to go to sleep. What happens when you are not even safe in your home?
This book had a creepy yet wonderful premise. I loved the details the author included in order the build up the tension and suspense. The characters are not fully flushed out, but enough information was given for the readers to feel Lily is a strong character and willing to do whatever it takes to protect her child, Masie. The way the author created a very realistic set of circumstances throughout their captivity made the story even better. That ending had a great twist that I did not see coming, but was not really sure about the family history of such events. This was not clearly expressed during the story. The pacing of the book was good. The book kept my attention until the very end. Overall, I recommend this book to those who love a good thriller. I look forward to reading more by this author!

What would you do if you woke up in your home… but it wasn't your home at all?

When a man wearing a picture mask of her daughter Maisie's face stands tauntingly in her garden, Lily Russell does the smart thing and calls the police. When she and Maisie wake up the following morning in an exact replica of their home, held captive by that same man, the police are no longer an option.

How can anybody not get reeled in with the above blurb? How completely intriguing!

I thoroughly enjoyed this nail biter, disturbing, mind-boggling story! The tension was high and I turned each page fearing what was coming next and wanting to know what happened next... Yup, the best kind of reading!

The plot is tense and intriguing, the pacing is perfect and the characters are fascinating enough to draw you into the intense and creepy play out of the story.

I was rushing through the pages to know what happened next, keeping me entertained and engaged.

I definitely recommend this thriller.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While You Slept

This is a book that evoked the emotions I used to have watching scary TV programs as a kid. The type you just had to watch but, before the days of fast forwarding through the scary bits on demand, you had to watch between your fingers.

Lily, a newly divorced single mother, has an alert on her phone. On her security camera a man is standing in her garden wearing a mask of her daughters face.

Rushing home to meet the Police Lily picks her daughter up from school. Maisie is scared by the policeman but soon settles down.

The next day Lily wakes up with a hangover, but that’s the least of her problems, she’s at home, in familiar surroundings, with all her possessions, except she’s not. Somebody has in prisoned her and Maisie within a complete replica of their own home, and there’s no way out

The only thing that’s different are the photos in the family album. The ones that she and her ex, Ewan, took of Maisie have been replaced by ones taken at the same time, images that show Lily, Maisie and Ewan when the originals were taken.

When The mystery man from the security footage makes contact he tells Lily to obey his rules or she will be punished, and she is. The first time she annoys him he takes Maisie away for a night.

No more spoilers, this is an original and brilliant story.

If I was to liken it to any other writing I’d say it was like a cross between Stephen King and Dean Koontz at their best.

The story follows Lily as she tries to escape and tries to work out whose holding them. She examines her own memories dragging her thoughts back to things she’d rather forget.

I really did read this in two sittings, I really did read this holding my breath for way too long at times, but most of all, I really really did enjoy this book.

Pages: 257

You wake up, with your daughter, and you are in your house - but it's not your house. It's a replica, with the exact details of your house but you can't leave. You are being held captive.

While You Slept is creepy but failed to create any sort of thriller or tension for me. It felt both rushed and somewhat slow. The daughter is a weird 5 year old - overly mature and beyond weird. The 'who done it' aspect of the book was boring, to be quite frank.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

This book was TENSE. It was so fast-paced I raced to finish it and find out what was really going on.

Unfortunately, what was going on made.... well, almost no sense. It felt like the author came up with a bunch of reasons, wrote them all down, put them in a hat, and picked one out. If there was more backstory to prop up the ending it would probably have been fantastic, but I don't really feel like there was any indication.

My other main issue was with Maisie, the supposed five-year-old, as a lot of other reviewers have pointed out. She did not read as a five-year-old at ALL, and it really kept pulling me from the story. I can't imagine a five-year-old saying "I want to go now. I don't want to be here any longer".

Having said that, I can see this translating into a fantastic thriller movie with a couple of changes.

creeepy. Definitely messes with your head - waking up a prisoner in your own house. I read it in the daylight so I wouldn't be up all night listening to every sound in my house LOL.
I only wish for a more BOOM of an ending. Fell somewhat flat for me.
Well written and nice sleek, simple cover!

Thank you for my free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The absolute stuff of nightmares. I was engrossed from beginning to end. Excellent thriller material but don't read while you're home alone!

I was immediately taken with the creepy premise of this book so couldn't wait to get stuck in.

Now this did get the adrenaline pumping, it gripped me and had me turning the pages as quick as possible.... (and here it comes) BUT...

There were just too many moments of utter disbelief and too many things that felt wrong!

Firstly, Maisie acts like a child of at least 10 or so years old but is supposedly only 5. Maybe as I have a daughter of that age I just couldn't find it believable but come on... no distraught 5 year old would act like a tween!

Secondly I couldn't get to grips with having no backstory, you never actually find out anything about the characters or their background and with the ending I feel some back story is most definitely needed (no spoilers).

Thirdly everything just felt sudden... all if the time! Every action was quick, the plot was quick, the ending was quick...

Lastly the ending made no bloody sense! Full stop.

Errrrrgh it just frustrated me so bad because I wanted it to be so good!

I'm giving 2* because it did keep me gripped the whole way through and I HAD to finish it.

Thanks to netgalley and Harper Collins UK (One More Chapter) for the ARC.

What I do enjoy about reading a Richard Parker novel is that he is not afraid to take a subject which is a little outside of the norm and spin it into a story that will keep you entertained to the very last page. He has certainly done that with While You Slept, a story that has a very strange appeal but rather dark undertones too. I won't lie - this isn't as dark as some of his other work so you aren't going to find anyone duelling with a mobility scooter here. The threat and the dark edge are far more subtle than that.

You are thrown into the action right from the off with the opening scenes showing protagonist Lily watching a man in her garden via her home security set-up. So far so normal - that's what those kits are for. But this man is wearing a mask of her young daughter's face - and this, whilst troubling, is probably one of the most straightforward problems she faces throughout the whole book. The police can do very little - there was no actual break in after all. But when Lily wakes up the next day it is in surroundings that are both familiar and unsettlingly wrong too. Whilst she and her daughter were asleep, someone has taken them and moved them to an exact replica of their home - with one small difference. This is a home from which they can never leave.

There is a constant sense of unease throughout the book, for obvious reasons. The only communication that Lily and Maisie have with the outside world is with the man who abducted them, a man who proves time and again how easily he can get to them and potentially hurt them. It does kind of make your skin crawl, that constant sense of being watched, not knowing if the food they have been left with has been tampered with but knowing that the intent is to keep them there, completely isolated, for a very long time. You do get a sense of the panic within Lily and the despair within Maisie and the chilling way in which their captor slowly lays out their intent.

What we do not know is the motivation behind the abduction, something that is revealed quite late on in the story and, to be honest, from out of nowhere to a degree. There is no hint of it throughout the rest of the book which makes the targeting of Lily seem even more random and , in a way, chilling. There are element of this book though where you will need to suspend disbelief a little, certainly as Lily and Maisie make a bid for freedom. The whole abduction lasts only a matter of days, but they are certainly eventful one as the abductor keeps his captives on edge. I enjoyed the story for what it was though, a short sharp, relatively fast paced read that I completed in a single evening.

If I had one niggle though, it was with Maisie who for five years old seemed to have too strong a vocabulary and sense of awareness. No I am no expert - not a parent, don't even go there - but I have a lot of nieces and nephews and I don't recall any of them being quite so strong and adult in character as Maisie. It may just be me - perhaps I am selling young children short. I know there is literally no telling what will come from some of their minds at times, but I think if her age had been just a little older, how she behaved, how she spoke, would have been more believable.

All in all a good story that I'm sure fans of the author will enjoy.

Okay, so I love love love creepy thrillers and I cannot believe I haven’t read a book by RJ Parker previously!! I’m going to be ordering more books by this author in the future. If you’re a fan of thrillers, this is the book for you. This book was intense, I was desperate to get to the end of it just to find out the ending. I was hooked from the start and finished it within a few days. I love the way the author writes, it makes you feel so emotional, like it’s happening to you! So intense! Love it!!

RJ Parker writes some creepy thrillers and I can’t believe I wasn’t reading this author sooner. This is a must for thriller fans, and I’ll be reading more of this author as soon as I can.

After recently reading The Dinner Party by R J Parker I was really excited to read his next book Whilst You Were Sleeping.

It tells the story of of Lily Russell and her five year old daughter Maisie who one day discover a man in their garden wearing a mask of Maisie. After a few creepy visits the pair go to bed one night and then wake up in a complete replica of their house, unable to leave.

Unsure what has happened Lily is only fed information through the male voice on the the phone, helpless to do anything but wait for his calls.

This story seemed to have so much premise but unfortunately I was slightly disappointed. The first 60% of the book sets the scene and builds the tension nicely and I flew through it but I felt that the latter half just lost its way a bit and was slightly rushed and thus ended up being a little unbelievable. I must admit I never saw the twist coming (don’t think many would as if is slightly ludicrous!) and the cliffhanger was maybe a little unnecessary. It was an ok read though and after The Dinner Party this wouldn’t deter me from reading any further books by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins and One More Chapter for the advanced reader copy.

Well.... shiiiiit. This book was crazy. From the first page I was hooked and couldn't put it down. What an emotional rollercoaster.
Lily and her daughter Maisie find themselves trapped in an exact replica of their home, with their every move watched and no way out.
Having been stuck in lockdown for just over 100 days and feeling a little claustrophobic myself, this book really got me in the feels. It felt so real.
Definitely one I would love to see become a movie. It had great potential.

I didn't love this thriller. I found it to be a bit too predictable and that diminished my enjoyment of it.

I was so looking forward to this book as I really enjoyed The Dinner Party by this author but this book took me a while to get into the story line and I wasn't keen on the characters.

Unfortunately it didn't hold my attention for very long and I was glad when I got to the end, strange as it was.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins (OMC) for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I want to say thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Oh. Where to begin. This book was absolutely not for me. The synopsis of this book truly is intriguing, and that is why I was excited to review this to-be-released thriller. However, that is as exciting as it got. The first few pages had those "oooooh yes!" moments that trillers often do to hook you into the story, but it dies off fairly fast (I mean like 15 pages in fast).

This thriller extremely repetitive, and the characters were a really odd mix of over done and under done. Maisie is supposedly a toddler who acts and articulates things like a 13 year old who is going on 30.

Twists and twisty endings are necessary for a good thriller, HOWEVER this thriller gives you a twist that is bizarre. Of course we would never guess the ending because it was rough and made zero sense.

I think a good round of edits and manipulating the storyline to fill in some holes and maybe make some of these "twists" a bit more realistic would make this a pretty okay book.

Thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for the free copy.

While You Slept is a story about kidnapping. Lily and her daughter wake up in a house replicated as their own. Except there is no way out. I like the premise of this book, however the actual story did not live up to that. Many aspects were just too unrealistic. I found myself rushing through just to get to the end.
Thanks to netgalley for the arc

I am so sorry but I was unable to get past 35% of this book. Nothing in this book was realistic, there is no way that Maisie's vocabulary is correct for a child of the age the book portrays her to be. Lily's constant childish questioning of herself and the situation she finds herself in began to grate and I found that I had no interests in how or why she had been kidnapped. I do believe the premise for the story was good however the author appears to be unable to pull it together and the writing is childish with no concept of how parents and children converse when a child is that age.

I wasn’t sure about this book. It was an interesting premise but it didn’t really work for me. I found the conversations between Lily and Maisie too advanced for Maisie’s age. There also seemed to be an awful lot of unnecessary description, which was often quite clumsily written. The ending of the book felt very rushed and it wasn’t particularly satisfying. An interesting story, but not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my copy of this book.

A creepy, chilling thriller which had me glued to my seat and read in one sitting. Lily and her daughter wake up in their home, but it isn't there home. Everything looks the same but it is not. This home is now their prison. Who are their jailers? Atmospheric, chilling and packed to the rafters with tension and suspense. This book definitely got my heart racing and as for climax it blew me away. A really good thriller with more than a touch of the psychological.
Thanks to HarperCollins UK and One More Chapter and Netgalley for the ARC.