Books Read: Emily Barr - The Sleeper

Lara Finch is living a lie.

Everyone thinks she has a happy life in Cornwall, married to the devoted Sam, but in fact she is desperately bored. When she is offered a new job that involves commuting to London by sleeper train, she meets Guy and starts an illicit affair.

When Lara vanishes from the night train without leaving a trace, only her friend Iris disbelieves the official version of events, and sets out to find her. 

For Iris, it is the start of a voyage that will take her further than she's ever travelled and on to a trail of old crimes and dark secrets. 

For Lara, it is the end of a journey that started a long time ago. A journey she must finish, before it destroys her...

After several failed attempts at IVF, Lara agreed to relocate to Cornwall with husband Sam as he's convinced that it's the stress of their busy lives in London that's preventing her from conceiving.  But after living the quiet life for a while Lara is ready for a bit of excitement so when she's offered a job in London she happily accepts.  Sam doesn't want her to go but she convinces him that it's perfect timing as they need the money to clear their debts that built during their IVF cycles.

So begins a new routine for Lara taking the sleeper train on Sunday evenings and returning home on Friday nights and it's during these journeys that she soon makes friends with a couple of other regular travellers.  But one weekend she never arrives home and police discover an incident happened on the train but there's no trace of Lara or of her ever leaving the train. Her friend Iris is convinced that something has happened to Lara but the police are convinced that she's guilty and on the run, so what exactly happened and where is she?

The Sleeper was a gripping read from start to finish and it was easy to see how Lara got swept up in the excitement of her routine and relationships especially as she felt that she'd been stagnating in Cornwall.  But the more you read the more you discover that there is a lot more to Lara than first meets the eye.  This was a story with twists and turns all over the place, just when I thought I knew what was going on, I was taken down a whole new direction but I liked this as it kept my attention and made me want to keep on reading 'one more chapter' to find out what exactly was going on! 

I'd like to thank Veronique at Headline for sending me a copy of this book to review.  Amazon links: Paperback or Kindle