I have had the pleasure of first reading this book, and then a few months later listening to the audio narration by Sarah Durham. And let me tell you, the narration does a brilliant job of enhancing the downward spiral of insomnia and paranoia experienced by Emma, making the entire experience and fear of insanity that much more chilling.
It is both palpable and scary at the same time and leaves you continuously questioning the characters actions.

Additionally, the second time around I find myself even more appreciative of the intricacies of the plot, and how cleverly everything is tied together and how brilliantly it all unfolds. When initially I allowed to many questions to creep in, this time I was swept away and thrilled by the entire Ouroboros effect.

Insomnia is a brilliant and compelling thriller from start to end.

Emma has worked hard to build a good career, take care of her family and create a normal life after a rather disturbing childhood. With her fortieth birthday approaching, she suddenly finds herself sleeping less, restless and slowly losing her grip on her carefully created life. Is this an unending downward spiral into madness?

Sarah Pinborough does it again with a nice blend of psychological thriller, a touch of the supernatural and a good dose of the unreliable narrator. I can imagine that the repetition might be frustrating to some readers but it is there for a reason and gives a nice edge to the spiral of madness.

I was not completely blindsided by the ending but I did love how all the threads eventually connected.

"The monsters were never under my bed, they were inside my head"

The book was clearly a title pick for me. M not sure if I am glad to read this Or tensed by what I have put inside my head.

I had taken a week's time to finish this! Honestly it's overwhelming. You get scared by your own thoughts, overthinking, anxiety all triggering at once & so pissed when no one truly believes you even when you know you are right... or you may think you are right- but do you know for sure?

It's a psychological thriller that I would recommend you all read because you won't see the end coming.

If I say anything more it would be a Spoiler... hence would wrap this with a word rating(each word for each star)
🌬Insomnia
🌬Accidents
🌬Fate
🌬Déjà vu

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins UK Audio, HarperCollins and Sarah Pinborough for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Oh my word, where to begin. What a masterpiece! As a fan of ‘Behind Her Eyes’ I had high expectations for this book and I was certainly not disappointed.

Emma’s 40th birthday is quickly approaching and her insomnia is getting worse. Emma’s mother had a psychotic break on her 40th birthday and Emma is terrified the same will happen to her. Strange things start to happen to Emma, the exact same strange things that happened to her mother.

This is an outstanding psychological thriller, it was even a little scary! It is dark, gripping and intense. I listened to it in one sitting, I couldn’t stop!

The narrator, Sarah Durham, adds extra tension to the story and really suits the book.

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough and Narrated by: Sarah Durham was a very good psychological thriller! But, It did take me a while to get used to the audio voice and then I loved it. I was hooked!!! This book was a great find and had great twists and turns throughout it became a roller coaster ride!

This new book by Sarah did not disappoint.

I highly recommend it I loved it

Big Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, Harper Fiction and Harper Collins UK Audio for the ARC of Insomnia in exchange for an honest review.

After loving Behind Her Eyes by Pinborough, I was looking forward to seeing what mad story she had thought of next.
This definitely wasn't as 'mad' but it was a gripping thriller that kept me entertained by audio for a few days! The story had a strong thread running through, and the madness of Emma's insomnia definitely spoke to me! She had concerns going back from her mother, and this added to her paranoia and the subsequent tension throughout the book.
The ending didn't wow me though. Behind Her Eyes blew my mind, but this had way more of a mundane generic thriller, and was rather predictable in its conclusion.
Also shared to my Instagram and Facebook pages Curling up with a coffee and a kindle

After receiving this audiobook from Netgalley, I couldn’t wait to get started on it as I’ve read quite a few of Sarah Pinborough’s books and have thoroughly enjoyed them.
I will make it clear that this is the first audiobook I’ve listened to by this author, and whether that is the reason that this book just didn’t grab me, who knows!
I restarted this audiobook 3 times as I wasn’t sure I was quite getting it, but once I was properly into the book, I did find in general that the pace was quite slow for my liking and I just didn’t feel engaged by the narrator.
I found the characters quite irritating and I feel this impacted my overall thoughts on the whole book.
Thankfully, in the last chapter of the book there was a simplified breakdown of what had happened and who did what, as I did find I was loosing focus throughout the book and had to keep going back to re listen too it.

I’d be very interested to see if this book was better for me in physical form rather than as an audiobook.

My thanks to HarperCollins U.K. Audio for a review copy via NetGalley of the unabridged audiobook edition of ‘Insomnia’ by Sarah Pinborough in exchange for an honest review. The audiobook is narrated by Sarah Durham.

I have long appreciated Sarah Pinborough’s writings across various genres including fantasy, mysteries, and horror as well as her screenplays. This was my first experience of one of her psychological thrillers though it won’t be my last.

So a few plot details. Emma Averell has a successful legal career, two beautiful children and a wonderful stay-at home husband. Readers of domestic noir/psychological thrillers know that when a character seems to ‘have it all’ that it is likely to soon come tumbling down.

Ever since her big 4-0 started getting closer Emma can’t sleep and is haunted by the memory that her mother stopped sleeping just before her 40th birthday too. Her behaviour had become more bizarre and resulted in a severe breakdown. Emma and her older sister Phoebe were taken into foster care. Is this what is happening to Emma?

Emma is the novel’s narrator and her increasing concern over her inability to sleep and other factors, which I won’t go into in order to avoid spoilers, is vividly conveyed. Pinborough very effectively describes the distress caused by sleep deprivation. Having had bouts of insomnia, I only read this novel during the day just in case!

With respect to the audiobook edition, Sarah Durham is a well known British actor whose narration I have enjoyed on other titles. I found her delivery compelling and felt that she effortlessly captured Emma’s increasing sense of unease.

Overall, I felt that ‘Insomnia’ was a disturbing psychological thriller that took me on a fascinating, creepy and twisty path to its conclusion.

Having loved the adaptation of Behind her Eyes, I was excited to see Sarah Pinborough had a new book out and keen to see where her imagination would take it. I received an audio download of this from NetGalley (thanks to the author and Harper Collins) and felt the story worked really well through the added dramatisation of narration.

The premise of the book is intriguing: in the run up to her 40th birthday Emma stops sleeping and life as she knows it starts to slip through her fingers. Emma desperately tries to keep it together and not follow in the footsteps of her mother who similarly stopped sleeping in the run up to her 40th birthday, then committed a terrible act rendering her in a secure psychiatric ward. On top of lack of sleep increasing stressful family and work situations culminate with Emma not knowing who she can trust, who is causing harm to her family, and concern that the pervading danger is actually coming from herself.

An enjoyable, twisty thriller with an added supernatural element to keep you guessing. Excellent narration and an imaginative plot kept me hooked and the sense of insomnia induced cognitive dissonance is palpable.

Really enjoyable to listen to, the whispering scared the hell out of me! Twisty, dark and unsettling!

Don’t try to guess the ending. You won’t. I absolutely loved this book. You get to the stage where you don’t trust anyone. Not even the children. If you are up to reading an amazingly disturbing, upsetting and creepy book then this one’s for you. Best book I have read in ages.

My relationship with Sarah Pinborough's books has always been one of extreme love or hate, with 13 Minutes and Cross Her Heart in the love group and Behind Her Eyes firmly exiled to the hate category. Yes, I'm one of the ones who just couldn't get on with THAT ending. However, reading the blurb of Insomnia I was really intrigued and had to give it a try with much abated breath.

I chose to listen to the audiobook and from the first few minutes the narrator, Sarah Durham, immediately set the scene with her pace, intensity and almost disquieting narration.

The storyline line builds with an eerie yet frantic intensity that throws you firmly into a state of unease and panic that matches the terror and torture of Emma's long sleepless nights.

Pinborough firmly entangles the reader in a snare-like maze of twists and dead ends which add to the encroaching sense of restlessness. At each point you begin to feel there are finally some answers and that normality is returning and then there's yet another unexpected slap in the face. Who exactly are we supposed to believe?

I absolutely loved how Sarah looked at intergenerational trauma and at whether certain aspects of mental illness can be passed down from parent to child in such an alternative way. The plotting also has glimmers of the nature/nurture debate and questions if some things are just self-fulfilling prophecies which we have no control over.

A very eerie, meaty and unsettling thriller which put me immediately in a state of unease, performed by a narrator who really enhanced the experience.

Insomnia tells the story of Emma, a woman approaching her 40th birthday who is convinced she is going to go mad, just like her Mother. She stops sleeping and strange things start happening; does someone have it in for her, or is it just the madness approaching?

This is a gripping tale and I couldn't get through the audiobook quick enough. The story is told from Emma's point of view and it is quite disturbing being able to hear her thoughts. This is one example where I can imagine the audiobook being more immersive than the paper equivalent. The narrator was excellent and some of the repeated phrases and songs were super creepy in audio, in a way that may be lost in the pages of a book.

I couldn't predict all of the twists in this book, but I did manage to guess a few; however, this didn't take away from the enjoyment. I found that I easily got caught up in the familys' tragic tale and found myself desperate to know how it ended.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough is a well paced thriller that leaves you thoroughly captivated.
Emma is convinced that she’s going to go mad just like her mother did, but is there more to it than just sleepless nights?
This is a twisting tale that grabs you and keeps hold of you till the very end. Very well written that you just want to devour every word as quick as possible.

This is a great listen, in true Sarah Pinborough style it is deliciously insidious! I don't t know any other author who does 'creepy' even half as well.

Emma is a lawyer, married with 2 children. Her husband believes her mother died years ago, such is the shame that Emma feels at her mothers long term incarceration in a psychiatric unit due to an attempt on the life of Emma's sister during childhood.

On the approach to Emma's 40th birthday, her sister gets in touch to say their mother has ha a life threatening accident and encourages Emma to visit. This sets in motions a chain of events that cause utter chaos and have Emma questioning her own sanity.

I am utterly in awe of the mind who thought up this plot - it is GENIUS! On a personal note this is THE audiobook that got me through many hours in a darkened room recovering from laser eye surgery - I can testify that with the lights out it is in equal parts deliciously creepy and delightfully entertaining! It quite literally got me through a dark time in my life and for this I am enormously grateful.

My thanks to NetGalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to review this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This was a solid thriller. It is a domestic style tale but with the usual Pinborough twists. I liked the sister relationship and the many rumours and twists.


I enjoyed the narrator also.

I enjoyed this audiobook very much, The narrator was great and the story was suspenseful enough to be great to listen to. I loved the way I listened unsure if Emma was doing the things her family thought she was, She was so scared she was losing her mind the same as her mother did. The interaction with her family was quite difficult as Emma didn't know who to believe. The story flowed well. My only criticism is the ending was slightly unrealistic.

Emma, the protagonist finds evidence of herself acting very oddly, with no memory of what she has been doing and worries that her mother’s mental illness is hereditary. She fast approaches 40, the same age that her mother was when she had a psychotic break…the mother who also predicted Emmas mental decline at this age. 


You are left questioning what the cause of these strange goings on are, and if Emma really is losing her grip on reality or if there are other, even more sinister causes.



A few cliches in the plot, but overall thrilling and the first person narrative really gets you into Emma’s frayed headspace keeping you on the edge of your seat.



An excellent narrator, Sarah Durham voices a lot of audiobooks in this genre.

I really wanted to love this book. I've read other books by Sarah Pinborough which I've thoroughly enjoyed (13 Minutes being my absolute favourite) however this lacked pace for me to be honest.

I found the main character a little annoying. When she wasn't whining she was prickly so not very easy to like, however I understand that we're not supposed to love all characters - even the main ones. The husband wasn't much better either, nor the sister.

I will always read a Sarah Pinborough book - I think this one was just not my cup of tea.

In the dead of night, madness lies…
Emma can’t sleep.
CHECK THE WINDOWS
It’s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer.
LOCK THE DOORS
Her mother stopped sleeping just before her 40th birthday too. She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it.
LOOK IN ON THE CHILDREN
Is that what’s happening to Emma?
WHY CAN’T SHE SLEEP?

Imagine not being able to sleep. Imagine being an insomniac and spiralling into a feeling of madness, a complete loss of control over your mind.

This is a dark and chilling psychological thriller of a woman’s past, present and future. The story counts down from twelve days before Emma’s 40th birthday and as the tension builds she starts blaming people for actions that she can’t remember carrying out until she doesn’t know who she can trust, if anyone. Her mother experienced the same things at the same age… is history repeating itself? The plot is pacy, fast moving and together with intrigue, suspense and twists and turns add to what is a creepy story with a surprising and unexpected ending.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an unbiased arc in exchange for an unbiased review.