I really tried to love this book, but it just wasn’t for me. I found it a little boring, and didn’t love the narration.

Many thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio/Flatiron Books for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the sophomore book by Romy Hausmann. This author's debut novel, Dear Child, was an absolute 5 star read for me; I'm giving this book 3.5 stars rounded up for the beautiful writing. Thanks for including me on the blog tour for this book!

Nadja was convicted of a crime when she was just a child. Out of jail now, she leads a quiet life with a job she likes and a new friend, Laura. When Laura asks Nadja's help in covering up a crime, things go very wrong.

That's enough information to hook you into this book and I loved that plot synopsis. The writing is again wonderful and very atmospheric. It's creepy because you see that things just aren't going to end well. My biggest issue was just that it was confusing - the timeline switched often, there were letters being written in between chapters that didn't seem to fit in while reading, and I had issues keeping up with the characters. Don't let that discourage you though - Romy Hausmann is such a gifted writer that I kept reading and loved the twists and turns, cat and mouse games within this book.

Narrated by Heather Long, Lucy Patterson and Michael Fenner - the narrators did a good job of voicing these characters. I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the characters and I think that was more of the way it was written as opposed to the narration.

I really enjoyed Dear Child last year and in fact, gave it 5 glowing stars and while Sleepless had all the makings to follow in its footsteps, I found it to be confusing and disjointed. I loved the ending bits when I finally had all the characters down and could join the pieces together in that a-ha moment but getting there was painful and I literally had to trudge my way through. I rarely DNF so I stuck with it and I’m glad I did because there was a sense of satisfaction that made it worth it … but just barely.

I listened to this and found the female narrators to be exceptional but didn’t enjoy Mr. Fenner as much and I think this is because his narration of the female voices made me cringe, especially when he narrated Laura. Yikes!

As much as I looked forward to Sleepless and wanted to love it, I didn’t. I’m giving it 3 stars because the last 25% redeemed the book for me.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for this gifted ALC.

A twisty tale that was a bit hard for me to pick up on audio. I think I would have probably liked this better in print, but I did like how the author can weave seemingly disparate threads together into a decent thriller. Multiple timelines and characters were tough for me to keep straight, but I do appreciate the tense and atmospheric writing.

3.5 stars

I liked but didn’t love this one. Usually I enjoy stories that jump around at first because I love the feeling of finally figuring out how everything connects, but for some reason, I had trouble sorting through the fragments of this one until I was quite a way into it. It was mostly good by the end, although I’m still a little bit confused by the brief epilogue that concluded the story. Either way, it was an experience.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for a review copy via NetGalley of the unabridged audiobook edition of ‘Sleepless’ by Romy Hausmann in exchange for an honest review. This novel was originally published as ‘Marta schläft’ in Germany, 2020 and translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch. The audiobook is narrated by Heather Long, Lucy Paterson, and Michael Fenner.

I had enjoyed Romy Hausmann’s 2020 debut thriller, ‘Dear Child’ and so was pleased to read her second thriller.

As for the plot, I not only want to avoid spoilers but given its complexity it isn’t an easy novel to summarise. The main protagonist is Nadja Kulka, who has for some years been working for a Berlin law firm. She now lives a quiet life though in 1999, when she was fifteen, she was sent to prison for some years. Following her release she had sought to rebuild her life.

When Nadja first started working at Abramczyk & von Hoven, she was very insecure but her beautiful, free-spirited co-worker Laura Brehme reached out and helped her gain confidence. Not long after this Laura married Nadja’s boss, Herr Gero von Hoven.

It’s been years since Nadja has seen Laura, but she turns up at the end of a work day begging for Nadja’s help saying that she has committed a terrible crime. Due to their earlier friendship, Nadja feels compelled to assist her.

This plot unfolds quite slowly and does require a close reading as Romy Hausmann develops several plot threads and characters across different timelines. Towards the end the action does pick up and it became a gripping page-turner. I certainly felt that it delivered in terms of twists and revelations and that its various threads were brought skilfully together.

With respect to the audiobook, having originally read its print edition a few months ago it was interesting to revisit it via its audiobook edition. Having professional narration allowed the drama of certain scenes to be heightened and increased my appreciation of the novel.

I enjoyed having three narrators as it allowed for the chapters allocated to Nadja, Laura, and Gero to be read individually. All three are established actors with clear, expressive voices.

Overall, I found ‘Sleepless’ a highly satisfying European crime thriller.

I can't do it anymore, yikes. Pulling the plug at 62%.

I have no clue what is happening. I can't tell any of the characters apart. There's strange timeline issues happening that I can't keep track of. In short, I just can't. I don't even care what happens to any single one of these characters. No connection, no concern, no problem.

I'm fairly disappointed because I did enjoy Hausmann's novel, [book:Dear Child|48893162], quite a bit. Even though that one started off a little confusing, it was in a fun way and it was also easy to track the storyline.

This one is just ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Thank you, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. Even though it didn't work out for me, I am sure there are Readers out there who will enjoy it!

Romy Hausmann's debut thriller Dear Child was originally published in Germany in 2019, and took the English speaking world by the storm in 2020. It won Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mysteries and Thrillers of Fall 2020 award and Bastle Best Books of Fall 2020 to name a few. And needless to say it was all over Bookstagram.

A year later...and I don't know what happened. Sleepless got significantly less glamorous reviews, and I am not entirely sure why. "Slow", "disjointed", "convoluted", "the timeline jumped erratically" are just a few negative descriptors that I have found on Goodreads.The truth (I think) is that this book is just too far removed from the style in which Dear Child was written, and is not inline with the American/British notion of what a good thriller should be in general. That is to say...it actually has too much content, it is too complex, mostly character driven, not fast paced, suspensefull or thrilling enough. In short, it is just not something that your typical thriller reader craves, and most definitely NOT something that a fan of Dear Child would expect from this particular author.

So naturally... I enjoyed it quite a bit 😂

Honestly, guys, it's not a bad book. But you cannot expect your typical whodunnit, lots of violence, sex etc.etc. There is no "wow" factor when whodunnit is revealed like in Dear Child. This book is almost crime-and-punishment-esque. It's philosophical in its nature, not thrilling. When whodunnit is revealed it's just...sad. It is something you expected but was secretly hoping it would not be so.

The book talks a lot about the consequences of one's actions (whether premeditated or not). We meet a lot of "good" people who made poor choices in a spur-of-the-moment, who do not consider themselves "criminals", but nevertheless are willing to do whatever it takes to protect their behinds. Including throwing some other good (and innocent!) people under the bus.

Perhaps most importantly, Sleepless introduces American reader to what it's like to be brought up in a small, steel factory town in the former Eastern Bloc, where the alcoholism and prostitution are the two "escape" routes that people typically take if they want to forget about their dreary reality if for a moment only. Where possibilities are nonexistent, and a lot of children are left to fend for themselves. This coupled with the graphic description of the reality of growing up with the absent, self absorbed, perpetually depressed mother is again, perhaps, a bit more than what your typical thriller lover is willing to sign up for.

The passages where the author describes childrens' unconditional love of their mother, despite the "many broken promises" are particularly heart wrenching.

In a way this book reminded me of Leila Slimani's The Perfect Nanny. Specifically due to the fact that it was also marketed towards thriller lovers, even described as the "French Gone Girl", and therefore, ended up being a disappointment to so many readers. Also a character driven novel, it simply was NOT a thriller at all.

I did find some of the characters in Sleepless lacking. In particular, Laura. I really could not make head or tail of her personality. Was she a good person at heart? Was she evil or did she just make a lot of mistakes? Was she really truly sorry for what she had done and what she set out to do? No clue...I think both her and Gero could have used either more or less character development. Less if their purpose was just to be an accessory of sorts to move the plot along. In any case I found them both exceedingly confusing as the story moved towards the conclusion.

I do not speak German so I cannot speak for the quality of the translation, however, I will say that the original title of the book, Marta Schläft, which translates as "Marta is Sleeping" is far more fitting than "Sleepless". I am really perplexed by the editor's decision to change the title.

And lastly the audiobook was fantastic. It is a multiple narrator audiobook and I think all of them did a fantastic job. I highly recommend this book on audio should you decide to give it a chance.

Thank you NetGalley , Romy Hausemann, and Macmillan Audio for my advanced copy.

🌟🌟🌟.75

3 stars

A story of violent crimes & twisted romantic relationships told in three intertwining parts. There is plenty of drama & intrigue, but I had a hard time connecting with the characters & an even harder time parsing the narrative with all its jumps in time & perspective.

[What I liked:]

•There is definitely an element of suspense in the chapters Nadja narrates. Her panic & confusion underscore her irrational decisions & bumbling attempts to cover up a crime. It definitely gives that part of the story momentum.

•The climax of the main plot line is pretty good, with the whole struggle for survival against violence & psychological manipulation.

•The writing (& some of the prose) is probably the best feature of the book. The emotional impact of essential scenes is convincingly portrayed. I thought the descriptions of Nadja’s panic attacks, dissociation, & PTSD were especially well crafted.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The narrative switches back & forth between letters by a woman (who’s ostensibly in prison?) to an unnamed recipient, a young girl having an affair with an older man, & two women trying to cover up a murder. The identity of the woman writing letters was withheld for most of the book. Since I couldn’t relate her letters to the other two narrative threads for so long, I found her parts annoying: vague, melodramatic, self-pitying, & disconnected.

•Meanwhile, the affair plot line turns out to be mostly irrelevant, & I’m not sure why it was included except maybe to make a certain character look like more of a jerk for knowingly helping to put an innocent man in prison? I especially question the decision to open the book with a long introduction of Nelly’s character since she plays such a bit part overall.

•Nadja doesn’t make for a compelling MC, imo. Are we supposed to pity her? Feel empathetic to her plight? Be put off by her lack of ethics & practically delusional codependency? At times I felt sympathy for her, but most of the time I couldn’t understand her decisions.

•Paul is an underdeveloped run-of-the-mill liar & cheater, Nelly is a delusional/naïve girl, & Laura seems like a cold & manipulative faux damsel-in-distress from the start. Her husband is…a sociopath? Not really, since he occasionally shows some empathy; I could never make sense of many of his risky but pointless decisions either. In short, who is the reader supposed to connect with? I couldn’t fully connect with any of these characters.

•The ending is a bit weird. Out of nowhere, an amoral & manipulative a**hole becomes sappy & self sacrificing? Pretty OOC. And the other 2 MCs just move on & return to normal life? And are supposedly even more healthy & stable than they had been before experiencing this string of traumatic atrocities? It’s all wrapped up too neatly.

CW: suicide, infidelity, murder, domestic violence, child abuse, PTSD

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

I found this book to be a bit hard to figure out in the beginning but as it went on it started to come together. The different story lines I think added to the confusion. Overall a good plot with a good amount of characters and suspense. I listened to the audiobook and found the narration to be excellent. Thanks to NetGalley for the privilege to read and review this book.

The narrators of this book did a fantastic job of bringing this story to life. Unfortunately, I often found myself trying to remember which timeline and plot line I was currently listening to. I don't necessarily mind a book going back and forth in time or having more than one plot. Keeps life interesting. But here it didn't quite work. It was a fast paced story at times and I did want to continue listening until the end. However, that was half so that I could understand what was going on and how it would all come together. I did enjoy it in the end.

Wow, this book was a whirlwind! The main character, Nadja, made this book so interesting from start to finish. As for the audiobook itself, I felt lost several times throughout. I wish the chapters were labeled better so I didn't have to rewind and listen to understand where I was in the book. To all my fellow thriller lovers, this one is for you, but maybe read the physical book!

I listened to the audio of this novel.

First, hats off to the narrators! They were energetic, animated and made the portions of the novel I understood phenomenal.

Unfortunately, I was very confused for the majority of the first 60-70% as it jumped between plot and subplot and timelines as well. I kept going partly because I am intelligent and it was bothering me that I didn't understand and also because I owed a review for it.

Strangely enough the last 20% pages or so stuck to one topic and was quite clear. I did enjoy the ending. I am not sure if I would have understood better as physical book, or not.

Thank you for allowing me to listen and review!

All right so. The sound is super interesting when I found it on net galley and then it took me forever to get into it.

And I never really did if I’m being honest.

It was just very whatever. Not great not terrible just kind of well I read that.

I don’t know it just felt like to me. The audio is fine for the audiobook by the way.



As always thank you to net galley for sending me a review copy

Thanks #netgallery for this audiobook. I enjoyed the narration and story. It took me a few chapters to keep the characters and timelines straight in my head. This likely was due to not being able to easily reference back since I listened to the audio. Overall a good book.

Sleepless has a lot of twists and turns. It was quite hard to keep character and timelines connected with the audiobook. Hopefully, as a physical or digital book it would be easier. Towards the end everything does get cleaner and more clear as to what is happening.
A woman has killed her lover and gets the help of her friend and ex-con, who was in prison for murdering her mother, to get rid of the body before her husband gets home.
I have been wanting to read Romy Hausmann, and now I want to read her other book, Dear Child.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio through NetGalley for this early opportunity (Pub date 10/5/21).

2.5 stars, rounded up, but just barely.

I really loved last year's Dear Child, I thought it was inventive and exciting. This one, not as much. I read one review (thanks Sandy for this image) where it said this book was like you took all of the chapters out except the first and last and shuffled them all around and then put them back in the book in a random order. This is pretty much what reading this book feels like, up until about 60% into it when things start to become a bit more straightforward.

You have a past storyline with Nadja when she is younger, you have some random letters from a person to another, you have Nadja and Laura and past and present all mixed around with an incident there, and you have this woman Nelly and her lover Paul. The threads are eventually somewhat tied together, but the Paul storyline was basically a throwaway to me.

To me, it was like the author was trying to be super creative with storytelling but it didn't really work to tell it all out of order. I want to enjoy my reading, not have to work to figure out what is happening and when and why. The author needs to do that heavy lifting for me, not the other way around as it occurs with this novel.

There are a couple of very good twists that I did figure out ahead of time. Still, it did elevate the book to have those included. The Nadja/Laura/Gero storyline, once it gets going in a more straightforward way, is the best one of the bunch. The epilogue though...I have ZERO idea what that was all about.

I listened to this as an audiobook with multiple narrators. I did like Lucy Paterson, who voiced Nadja, but Michael Fenner's voicing of Laura is way too fake falsetto. He's fine for the male parts and background narration, but I didn't like his inflections with females.

Overall, my opinion is that you should skip this one unless you're committed to doing the work of wading through the chaos to find the core story.

I read some reviews before listening and read they had a hard time following this book's storyline, so I paid more attention when listening. I was glad I was aware of this ahead of time. The book by Romy Hausman and narrated by Heather Long, Lucy Paterson, and Michael Fenner. They did excellent narrations, easy to understand, and had good inflection. The story jumps around a lot in time and place even characters and that is what is challenging for the listener. Listening in short or even average time frames makes it harder to remember where you are in the story. My advice is to set aside more time to listen in longer time frames. It is an interesting story and all of the different characters, times and events come together in the end. I was mildly surprised at the ending as it didn't seem congruent to the character's personality. It's an unusual story one that's not been saturated on the market. Thank you, NetGalley, and A Macmillan, Audio production from Flatiron Books for allowing me to listen to this advanced audiobook, this is my honest opinion. If you give it adequate listening time to be able to keep it all straight I think you will find it interesting. It has the elements of murder, relationships, painful betrayal.

A woman, trying to help a friend dispose of a body, gets way more entangled in the mess than she believed possible.
The book jumped around a bit as far as the timeline went and was a bit difficult to follow, at least as an audiobook. By the end, I was able to figure out what was happening during the flashbacks, but I wish it wouldn’t have taken as long as it did to become clear. Hence, the three stars.
Thanks to #netgalley and #flatironbooks for this ARC of #sleepless in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first book I’ve listened to by this author. I was given an ALC from NetGalley and the publisher.

The book was a little difficult to follow initially. It jumped between characters and different time periods and it was hard to differentiate between chapters. About midway through though it becomes cleared and easier to follow and really grabs your attention.

I definitely did not expect the twists at the end and didn’t see them coming. I would definitely read another book by this author however maybe not listen to an audiobook as I think it made it harder to follow.