Before I go to sleep is an engrossing thriller with the added dimension of having a main character, Christine, with two different types of amnesia acquired after an accident. Each morning she wakes up a man she doesn’t recognise, but who she has been married to for years. When she looks in the mirror she doesn’t see the face of the 27 year old she thinks herself to be, and her hands belong to a much older woman. Her husband has to explain every day who he is, who she is, and tell her about their life together both before and after her accident. She remembers things during the day, but loses all of those memories during sleep.
The story starts with Christine waking up, and then receiving a phone call from a man who says he is a doctor she has been seeing regularly. He tells her about the journal that she has been keeping and which he has now read. So each day she reads the journal and she learns about her life, having no memory of what she wrote yesterday. Her doctor has to ring her every morning to remind her where she has put the journal so she can re read it, and write some more entries. Gradually she realises that what she is reading in the journal and what her husband tells her aren’t always the same. Add the occasional flash of a memory and Christine’s life starts to unravel.
This is a very good thriller which would appeal to a very wide audience. Even people who don’t normally read thrillers. $32.95 Heather
