The Sleepwalkers is an eery, slow-burning thriller told in an innovative format, consisting of long and confessional letters written by the protagonists to each other. A bizarrely strained newlywed couple embark on a honeymoon gifted to them by his mother, but sinister undertones soon make themselves known and we are made aware that something serious has happened, or is about to happen, from the very beginning but are left guessing as to what. I found the format a little abrupt and confusing at times but on the whole it was a very effective way of building tension and teasing the reader with snippets of information but cleverly avoiding giving everything away at once. I was a little underwhelmed by the ending but I could understand why it happened the way it did.

The tiny Greek island should have been a picture perfect honeymoon destination but, for newly married Evelyn, everything about the grand Hotel Villa Rosa that is her mother-in-law's insistent wedding gift feels off. She already feels at odds with her new husband, Richard, and the way the hotel's owner, Isabella, speaks only to him isn't improving her mood.

So begins Scarlett Thomas' The Sleepwalkers, a tense, atmospheric modern Gothic tale whose novel structure keeps the reader guessing till the very end.

The first two thirds of the book are masterfully crafted. A frisson of unease permeates everything, suggesting that even the most innocuous event could have sinister undertones. Frequently referenced is the story of 'The Sleepwalkers', an older couple who drowned in mysterious circumstances the year before, but Thomas also uses the setting to great effect: the not-quite-rightness of a holiday destination after the crowds have departed and the weather has broken. The pathetic fallacy of the lowering sky, imminent storm and oppressive heat adroitly complement the rest of the writing and emphasise the Gothic themes and motifs.

Another interesting choice is the use of the epistolary structure and second person narration, with the story being told through a series of letters and other documents. The first part of the story is relayed via a 'Dear John' letter from Evelyn to Richard, explaining why she is leaving him. The character herself is a writer whose most celebrated (and controversial) work is what you might call a sensationalised autobiography, so the reader immediately questions her reliability as a narrator. To what extent is she relaying events as they transpired, and to what extent is she constructing a dramatic narrative? Many other questions arise, setting up the tale of suspense and intrigue. What changed between Evelyn and Richard? Why is she running away? And how much of Evelyn's recollections are accurate and how much are coloured by her mood and feelings about her new marriage?

The narrative continues at pace, as more secrets, lies and questions come to the fore at every turn, and the reader realises just how much the two newlyweds have kept from each other. Neither Richard nor Evelyn is wholly likeable, but nor are they totally monstrous; Thomas writes both with an impressive complexity and depth.

The ending wasn't quite as strong for me, but I think this was largely because the set-up had been so successful that it would be difficult for any denouement to satisfy completely. Overall, I thought The Sleepwalkers was thoroughly entertaining and found myself looking forward to any moment I had time to immerse myself once more in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Arriving on an idyllic Greek island, honeymooners Evelyn and Richard divide their time between a quaint budget hotel, and latterly a luxurious beach side villa where the staff are rude and the facilities disappointing. For a just married couple, Evelyn and Richard are disconnected from one another. They hear the rumour of the sleepwalkers, a couple who died walking into the sea the previous year. I was rather taken with this idea of a haunting novel about the mystery of the sea, but the synopsis really didn’t do justice to the scope of the narrative.

For me the stories were too disparate. I struggled to connect with any of the characters, and found the sudden change in tone towards the midway to be jarring and intelligent.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Love Scarlett Thomas and I was so excited for this one. Funny and subversive, I loved the premise of the ghost story without ghosts, and the letter-writing narration. A unique read, and - as with many of Thomas' books - full of twists and turns.

#Netgalley

The Sleepwalkers immediately caught my eye, both for that dreamy cover and the description, which sounded like the perfect summer read.

Evelyn and Richard arrive on a small Greek island for their honeymoon. It’s the end of the holiday season, a storm is coming (in more ways than one), and although the area they’re staying in is idyllic, a refugee camp is situated on the other side of the island, heightening the couple’s awareness of their white privilege.
To make matters worse, their hotel stay was a “gift” from Richard’s mother and it’s not what Evelyn would have chosen. The hotel owner clearly has eyes for Richard, and maddeningly he both refuses to acknowledge it, and gaslights Evelyn into thinking she’s imaging it. Do I hate Richard a little bit? Why yes, yes I do.
The book is told from both of the couple’s perspectives, via lengthy letters they’ve written to each other, that over the course of the novel reveals some shocking and disturbing secrets they’ve both been keeping. Secrets that will truly rock their brand new marriage to its core.

The first half of this book was excellent and really drew me in. Around the halfway mark it starts to get a little bit muddled, although the author does pull it back in time for the ending. I have to say though, elements of the story felt a little too far fetched to me, and I’m usually pretty good at suspending my disbelief!

Overall I think this is a decent summer read but there are some grim themes in here that left an unpleasant after taste; if you’re looking for a happy beach read, this isn’t it. That said, I’m looking forward to seeing what this author writes next as this was an interesting concept, just not quite right for me in the end.

With many thanks to @netgalley and @simonandschuster for the early copy, as always all opinions are my own.

I love Scarlett Thomas’s writing and was super excited to read this new book. It blends the uncanny, mythical and eerie with a picture postcard location in Greece. Hard to write about without giving too much away but I loved the structure which slowly gives us clues as to what is going on and the cast of articulately drawn characters. Not your average holiday mystery, and all the better for it. Loved it.

For fans of Patricia Highsmith, Victoria Hislop and Deborah Levy (which I am)! This book, which starts as a letter from Evelyn to her husband at the curtailment of their honeymoon, feels tense throughout but for the first half I didn’t know why. It’s extraordinarily clever and original and an utterly addictive read.

Reading this gave me the feeling of waking up in a hot room where you can’t quite catch a breath. I loved the setting and felt like I was there. There isn’t exactly chapters to the book (or if there are they are at times lengthy sections) which meant finding a break point could be tricky, but stylistically the lack of breaks suited the story and telling.

4 stars because I’m not sure I liked the ending. I think I’d have preferred something cleaner, less convoluted but still very enjoyable.

Thoroughly enjoyed this. I wasn’t sure initially about how the book was organised, with letters from different characters, but it all seemed to work well together in the end. It was an intriguing plot and there was lots going on that I wanted to know more about.

"The Sleepwalkers" is a scintillating gothic thriller by the author of "The End of Mr Y." Set on an idyllic Greek island, newlyweds Evelyn and Richard's honeymoon turns nightmarish as they unravel the mystery of 'the sleepwalkers,' a couple who drowned in a tragic accident the previous year. The hotel's eerie proprietor, Isabella, adds to the tension with her strange behavior, leading Evelyn and Richard into a web of deception and intrigue.

With clever storytelling, dark humor, and unexpected twists, the novel explores themes of toxic relationships and hidden truths. Combining elements of Patricia Highsmith and Daphne Du Maurier, Thomas creates an unforgettable, suspenseful, and subversively funny tale that cements her reputation as a standout author in modern gothic fiction.

Another book which is difficult to talk about without revealing its secrets: this mesmerising novel joins newly-married Evelyn and Richard on honeymoon in Greece, recovering from what appears to have been a total disaster of a wedding. In a powerplay that (it becomes clear) is far from unusual, Richard’s mother has booked them the hotel stay as a gift, but has reserved it between very specific and tricky dates at the end of high season. Evelyn’s irritation at this is not responded to warmly by Richard, which gives you the first of many tiny, little gut-clenching rug-pull realisations about their relationship: if you’re not in it together, perhaps you shouldn’t be in it at all. Much to Evelyn’s disbelief the hotel’s owner Isabella openly flirts with Richard and disregards or deliberately misinterprets Evelyn’s every request: yet Richard continues to insist that Evelyn is imagining it all, gaslighting his new wife and raising her frustration levels to breaking point.
Soon it is revealed that the slightly unsettling hotel is the scene of a recent tragedy where a couple - known as the sleepwalkers - were drowned at sea in a storm: with bad weather on the horizon again, Evelyn and Richard’s tempestuous relationship starts to mirror the climate outside. With travel options limited by lightning they really are stuck with each other, but they’ve also never been further apart: can they find their way back to one another before the storm breaks? A haunting, gripping thriller in a stunning setting that sees a relationship dissected in excruciating detail: you’ll laugh out loud in parts, and be totally transfixed in others. Perfect for a beach holiday, but perhaps not a honeymoon?

I have read other books by Scarlett Thomas and loved them and with comparisons to Du Maurier and Highsmith, I was thrilled to be offered an advance read of The Sleepwalkers. The story started well, and some of the writing was beautiful. I believed I was in for a treat. Sadly, however, I lost interest part way through the book. I did finish it, but I found some of the story confusing.

I'm sure there will be others who will love this book. Perhaps for me, the timing was off.

They check in to an exclusive hotel, the Villa Rosa, where the proprietor Isabella — a strangely intense woman of indeterminate accent — flirts outrageously with Richard while treating Evelyn with a rudeness bordering on contempt. Isabella tells them the story of 'the sleepwalkers': a couple who stayed at the hotel the year before and drowned in a tragic and unexplained accident. It starts to feel like the entire island is obsessed with 'the sleepwalkers', but what at first seems like a fun tale to tell before bed quickly evolves into a living nightmare. 

Firstly, I didn’t like reading page after page without a break and I don’t understand why a writer/publisher would do that. There seems no reason for it. It is the quality of the writing that kept me going. Brilliant descriptions of people, places and emotions make this book so readable.

The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas feels like a book that isn't doing anything, it exists, it's not bad, but can't say that it left an impression

This is a well structured, well written novel and it's set on a Greek island. What's not to love? And I'm sure many readers will love it. Unfortunately, it and I just didn't connect. I didn't like the characters and didn't really care about them or what happened to them. It did hold my interest, albeit barely, through to the end.

Some very good scenes and a strong story overall, although many plot twists failed to convince. The comparisons to Daphne Du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith are a stretch, to say the least, and I also failed to find much humour in it.

I would tend to dismiss the praise The Sleepwalkers has received as media hype but there also seem to be a lot of [independent] readers who have written very positive reviews. So it must be me, then.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.

Evelyn and ROBERT were married against his family‘s wishes despite that his mother books them A honeymoon on an Italian island Evelyn has a bad feeling and it starts even before the hostess Isabell totally either ignores her or brings her something less than what she ordered and the whole time gives goo goo eyes to her husband ROBERT. She’s riding all this in a letter that will ramp up to eventually be a windfall I really didn’t see this book going where it went and for the most part I totally love that especially when Evelyn would mention something I would be like OMG that’s what that was I love books like that but I think the whole kerfuffle with the movie deal I DK I think it took it off the rails a bit but having said that I still finished it and would still recommend it because it is a good book you can tell the author has a massive amount of talent I would think it’s not easy writing a book that’s mostly letters and I do believe she did a pretty good job. I want to thank Simon and Schuster and Net Galley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

A rather intriguing style, with unreliable narrators and unfinished sentences. I rather enjoyed trying to decipher the audio recording, written as heard so you almost had to read it aloud.

I think the reason that I liked it, not loved it, was there was too much going on. I really enjoyed learning about the protagonists‘ weird relationships, but the background plot on the island itself felt like a step too far. (Trying not to give spoilers! 🤪)

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

I found this book disappointingly
difficult to get into. The first section with Evelyn felt quite rambling, and while I liked the writing itself I felt I needed more to hook me into the story. Once it moved on to other characters and types of story telling I enjoyed it more, although whilst I enjoy an unreliable narrator, unfinished sentences and a very confused plot just made me feel a bit irritated!
I will look out for more novels by this author though as I'm interested to see where her writing takes her next time.
Thank you to netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an advance copy of this book

3,5 - Probably more ‘domestic thriller’ than literary fiction, but I enjoyed it and it flows nicely on audio whilst cooking or shopping. The setting is a Greek island (which always helps) and the topic is a honeymoon gone terribly wrong. The hotel is strange and the owner even stranger – or is it our narrator who is the strange one? What exactly has happened we don’t know as our narrators are unreliable and communicate with each other in letters. The plot is surprising and well thought through. It’s all pretty dark and clearly there has been a lot of cheating going on.

Scarlett Thomas's Sleepwalkers is funny, sad, dark, hopeful, and a thoroughly enjoyable read that I romped through.
The dialogue is good, the awkwardness of the couple is spot on, and the darkness slowly creeps in. It's entirely written in letters (at least I don't recall a non-epistle part except for the hilarious audio transcription) and from both the main characters viewpoints. I love a bit of relationship analytics. But it IS dark, and disturbing, and wriggles and moves through many themes and directions. It's perhaps a little confusing towards the end but perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention to the subtle clues. (Which is a theme in itself!) In short: recommended.

The premise of The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas really intrigued me, and I was excited to be given access to an early copy. Unfortunately this book just was not for me, I found it very difficult to continue reading as I was not invested in the characters or the storyline. I did enjoy the setting and the depictions of Greece. and the storm. The epistolary nature of the prose was interesting to begin with but quickly became tired and kind of irritating. The section that is a transcription of an audio recording (with missed words and misunderstandings) was a unique concept but made for a confusing and unsatisfying experience. there are some very dark subjects in this book which I personally don't feel were handled with the care and sensitivity they required.
However, I have read many positive reviews about this book praising the multilayered nature and its creativity and uniqueness, I am very aware that this may just have not been the book for me and I hope it is a hit for other readers.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster UK and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.