Are You Awake?

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By her own account, she hasn’t really slept for two years, and she thinks of her husband, Jack, as little more than deadweight at the moment. The police aren’t making time for Mary and Tim, so they decide to take matters into their own hands and try to solve a crime. The personal lives of the protagonists could have been explored more — and the domestic nature of the disappearance was a bit OTT. After a degree in English and French from Oxford University she moved to London and worked in the charity sector.

However, she makes terrible decision after terrible decision that someone that smart would unlikely make. This is an addictive thriller packed with secrets and lies with a twist that will knock you sideways.She ran the UK's first MA in crime writing for five years, and regularly teaches and talks about writing. Ok so this could've been a guilty pleasure read but McGowan punched above the belt by making Mary a lawyer who didn't know the law from her left foot. Overall, a good solid mystery with the chilling psychological aspect where sleep deprivation can mess with your mind - tricking you into thinking you saw something when you didn't or you didn't see anything when you did. Ultimately I found the ending unsatisfying and I don’t think it made much sense in terms of the story up to that point.

Mary and Tim happen to meet in the park the next night, and confirm they both saw, or thought they saw, the same thing. I had a hard time putting it down (until the end, when I was ready for it to wrap up), and wanted to know how it ended.I wasn't invested in any of the characters and didn't care what happened in that house, I just wanted them to find out something! Woman’s Own magazine “This is an addictive thriller packed with secrets and lies with a twist that will knock you sideways. Unfolding through the alternating narratives of Mary and Tim, there is also the odd narrative from the missing Samantha, leaving you wondering what exactly has happened to her. However, the story often lags, with a slow pace and some less-than-believable behavior by not only Tim and Mary, but by other characters as well (including Mary’s husband). Although the characters were irksome, they were representative of what law enforcement deals with on a regular basis…people (witnesses) who think they know more than they really do!

are almost sure you DID see something that could shed some light into the disappearance of a young woman? I absolutely loved Claire McGowan's writing in I Know You and What You Did, so naturally I was pumped af to grab her latest off NetGalley. A sleep-deprived journalist and a sleep-deprived mom both think they see a missing teenager in the middle of the night. Honestly, it started out pretty intriguing, but soon turns into just a chaotic day in the life of Mary. One night, they both see something suspicious…what looks like a violent attack in the window of one of the neighboring homes.An unbelievable story line where an intelligent career woman nearly dies for somebody she meets at 3am in a London park! The two of them report what they have seen to the police but nothing much comes of it, so they decide to continue their own investigation. I love reading about amateur sleuths, and it was fun to picture Mary and Tim bopping around town, trying to get information…only to find themselves in more trouble. For Mary it's a chance to have something for herself outside of motherhood, whilst for Tim, it's the first time he's been interesting in anything (apart from stalking his ex-wife) for a long time.

Although readers are meant to feel for the two main characters as one struggles with PTSD and the other is a sleep deprived Mother with a husband who is clueless. And, the decisions she would make while her children were in tow would not win her any “mother of the year” awards. I also found it annoying how “that sort of thing” appeared way to many times at the end of sentences.Then, there are books like this one that are so ridiculous and inconceivable that you only continue to invest your time in them, simply to find out how much more unbelievable they can get. When Mary goes outside to investigate, she runs into another neighbor, fellow insomniac, and investigative journalist, Tim. It didn’t deter my reading, but I wonder if other readers would’ve embraced the silliness a bit more if it was straightforward in the funny department. One thing to know about these two, because it will be repeated incessantly for the first quarter of the book: They’re tired. I have heard great things about this author’s work, so I will have to give her another try-but this one unfortunately, was a MISS for me.