A twisty psychological thriller centering around the story of a woman who allegedly committed a double murder whilst sleepwalking, and the sleep psychologist who is trying to figure out whether she did it intentionally or not.

I found this hard to put down, and enjoyed the story unraveling through multiple viewpoints, and the twists at the end. I would read more from this author having enjoyed this book.

This was one secret-filled, thriller-bending ride of a story, and I loved it.

You follow Ben, a psychologist specialising in sleep-related issues, working for an exclusive clinic on Harley Street, London. Then into his clinic one day comes Anna O, a former 'It-Girl' who was found by the bodies of her two closest friends. And she has been asleep 4 years since that night, and the Justice System want her awake for trial. Ben sets off on a journey to try and wake Anna up, following the clues of her life, and trying to figure out what really happened the night she fell asleep.

I loved this book, I loved the twists and turns in the story as well as the eventual ending (which I did not see coming.) If you like a thriller, excellently written with a clever ending, then this is the book for you.

Wow. I put off reading this book because I didn't think I'd like it. I couldn't have been more mistaken! This is the story of a psychologist who specialises in sleep disorders and a suspected murderer who has been asleep for 4 years. I won't say any more about the storyline as it would take away the mystery of the book. I thought I have worked out who the villain was and it wasn't them or the next suspect. It was totally unexpected the way the story ended. The characters were well written and you could picture them. The writing was easy to read with just an odd word I had to look up. As this was an ARC copy some of the layout was a little odd but I enjoyed reading this book and wonder how the author can follow up this story. Thank you to the author, publishers and Netgalley for this advanced copy for an unbiased review.

this is a twisty, convoluted whodunit that aspires to be psychological thriller and reads like the book adaptation of a netflix movie. i stuck through to the end but did not manage to feel thrilled or even slightly afraid. either i’ve been desensitised by years of media consumption or the book takes itself way too seriously.

the main protagonist is a sleep psychologist who talks too much about freud for someone who claims to be better than that, and is obsessed with hitchcock’s films. we are repeatedly reminded of how handsome he is. too bad he is overall a pretty useless husband, father, and psychologist. he reminded me a lot of scottie from vertigo the film (maybe it’s foreshadowing).

I found the premise of the book to be extremely interesting. It's a perfect setting for a thriller and the name of the book itself gives it an aura of mystery.

I however took some time to get into the book and it was a slow burn for me. The book is told with multiple narratives and it takes a while to settle in. Once settled it is a good thriller with a twist packed ending.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for this e-arc in exchange of my unbiased review.

I read this book a few weeks ago, I found the concept very intriguing and the idea that someone could commit a crime and then never wake up again to tell their story quite scary.

I was frustrated throughout with DR Prince's inability to parent his child and this massively put me off him as a character. The story took a long time to come together and it seemed that all the information to understand the story was saved until the end to be a theatrical finale.

However, the twist at the end wasn't much of a surprise and just evidenced how little the doctor paid attention to his family. The doctor was very self indulged, which somewhat ruined the story for me.

I would not read this again, but the concept is strong.

Matthew Blake's Anna O's premise sounded so dark, fascinating and intriguing that I could not help but want to read it. The writer Anna O (Ogilvy) or Sleeping Beauty as she is referred to by some, understandably garners global attention for she has apparently committed the most extraordinary of crimes, double murders whilst sleepwalking, and hasn't woken since then. In a story told from multiple perspectives, forensic psychologist Dr Benedict Prince wants in on her rare resignation syndrome case as a specialist of these type of homicides. He seeks the truth of what happened, wanting to be the one that wakes her up, to be her 'prince', but as she comes under his care, we see this is a process that is fraught with complications.

In this multilayered, tense and complex narrative with its echoes of The Silent Patient, there are twists galore in the crammed plot, but for me there is too much repetition, pacing issues, it required a suspension of disbelief on occasion, and often ventured into what to me seemed ridiculous territory. I did enjoy and was gripped by aspects of the book which allowed me to finish this novel of mystery, tragedy, psychology, and sleep, including looking at whether it is possible to be guilty if one is asleep at the time of the crime. I have absolutely no doubt this will be a bestseller and there will be many readers who will love this more than I did, so I strongly urge you to read other reviews. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

A great concept, but at points a little convoluted and difficult to follow. For me this was not a ‘read in one go’ book, mainly because I found my self having to skip back and re-read some parts. Nicely twisty towards the end but again, instead of being driven to finish the book in excitement, needed to stop and start to review bits that I had either missed or didn’t link together. Overall, I did really enjoy the story but maybe a sharper edit to speed up some narrative and cut some unnecessary info out would have pushed me to a 5 star rating.

This is far from the easiest book to review - in some ways it is, perhaps, best seen as several books. In part this reflects the author’s choice to reveal the developing plot through different ‘voices’. This is by no means an original device but the different voices and different time frames that arise from one ‘voice’ being a diary of a key protagonist do conspire to make this a somewhat unusual approach. There is plenty of tension, and enough red herrings to stock a reasonable sized market stall, but the author leaves the most shocking and probably unexpected plot twist to the closing pages. A rather more ruthless critic might bridle at the length of the novel; it could certainly have benefited from a crisper edit without losing any of the context of the plot. Overall, though, it kept this reader’s interest piqued, despite the length and deserves to be recommended.

On a separate, and possibly idiosyncratic, point this reader finds it rather distasteful to see the names of recent appalling murders of children being used to add ‘colour’ to a novel.

This is a high concept thriller which I enjoyed. I imagine it will be a big hit.
Anna O committed a double murder, then fell asleep and never woke up again. We join the story when she’s admitted to a private clinic, a place where rich and famous people go to get sleep. She’s under the care of Ben Prince, a therapist whose specific interest is in cases of people who are in these states of long-term sleep. He’s going to wake her up, so the Home Office can finally take her to trial.
Ben is needs to find out more about Anna, in order to wake her up. He’s lucky, because his ex-wife is a police officer who was first on the murder scene. He’s also got a mentor who knows a lot of useful stuff. Prince starts to find links to another case, years previously. So what will happen when Anna wakes up?
This is twisty, and complicated with a lot of unreliable narrators. I have read a lot of thrillers and got the twist quite early, although there was some good sidetracking which made me temporarily doubt myself. I didn’t really like any of the characters, which actually felt helpful in being suspicious of everyone. This is not a high octane thriller, more a gradual reveal of useful info, with some excellent writing. I read this with Net Galley.

When I requested Anna O, I was very intrigued by the blurb that Matthew Blake had left on NetGalley. I have an interest in psychology and weird things that the mind/body can do.

My general overview of the book is that it’s a slow to medium paced psychological thriller. A who done it, and from an angle I’ve never read before. The ARC that I read on my kindle wasn’t set out great, but feel that this was more of a formatting issue as Matthews name kept appearing in the middle of the page. After a few chapters, I ignored it completely.

The storyline, I found was slow burning. Giving a background to the main characters. Ben Prince, a sleep specialist who built a thesis of waking people up from long term sleeping/coma patients by giving them hope through over stimulation. And of course Anna O, a patient, possible criminal who murdered 2 people on an outting.

Anna O background was written in the form of diary entries which bulked her character out and another mysterious characters of @suspect8, a blogger who seems like rattling up the online community of what happened with Anna O. Was she really asleep while she committed these murders?

The world building is mainly centred around the hospital , Bens home and The Farm, where the nurses took place. I felt like I had a good sense of the area., how far things were and time.

The narrative picks up from the second half of the book abs I did find that I wanted to read more and more to find out what had actually happened. The pieces of the puzzle drop nicely into place at the very end. Even if you did figure out the plot twist. It’s still a very good one..

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. 3.5 Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

I was very much looking forward to reading this. I was thrilled to get the request for an ARC accepted by NetGalley and rushed to finished my previous book because I just couldn’t wait to get started.
A murder committed whilst someone was asleep- did they do it??? Right up my alley.
However, It felt like a looooong old book.
It took me over 3 weeks to read it.
I was a bit confused about half way in. Is this too clever for me? Am I missing something? And even now, having finished it, I’m still a little confused.
The twist at the end; yes, nice. That’s helped the star rating.
But there’s too much that’s been left unexplained for me - or I’ve just “not got it”. I only had chance to read it in bits and drabs at first but got to read it in bigger chunks after around the 70% mark which helped.
I’d say, read it for yourself and make your own mind up. I wasn’t crazy about it unfortunately.
Many thanks to NetGalley UK and the publishers HarperCollins for the ARC.

This was a fantastic read what a gripping story. Had me from page one. I feel like a lot of research went into this novel and it shows! Well done to this author

In 2019 two people were murdered in a cabin. Anna was the person everyone believed to be responsible because she was found unconscious and covered in their blood.
Four years later she has never woken up.
A sleep expert Ben Prince is looking into the incident and trying to find a way to bring her back to find out what actually happened.
A slow moving thriller with some twists.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a gripping read. The characters are well written, especially Benedict Prince, the main character. The plot reveals itself chapter by short chapter, with thrilling glimpses into other times to introduce us to the events that lead up to where we find ourselves in the plot. The premise of sleep disorders was really interesting, especially how people have committed crimes while sleepwalking. As an occasional sleep walker, it was both interesting and worrying!
I would recommend this book anyone who likes a psychological thriller, you won't be disappointed.

Anna O was an interesting read, though did not fully scratch my mystery thriller itch.
Not a bad book, and the writing was fine, but my expectations of it were a lot higher

Ok, how do you review a book you neither liked nor disliked. It felt to me like the author had read Alex Michaelides The Silent Patient, seen it become a hit and decided to expand on the theme.
Anna Ogilvie is a 25year old with ambitions of becoming a writer/journalist. All this changes when one night she murders her two best friends while she is asleep. A sleep she doesn’t wake up from. She becomes known as Sleeping Beauty. Four years late Dr Ben Prince who specialises in Anna’s sleep disorder, and sleep related murders, is asked to see if he can wake her up. But if he is able to wake her she will then be charged with murder, unless he can prove otherwise. His methods seem to work and she awakes. Only she knows what really happened, but Ben has to find out the truth.
With lots of points of view and several twists that were not, for me, plausible, I found the book rather disappointing. This is where I wish 1/2 stars could be awarded.
3.5 stars from me

#AnnaO. #NetGalley

Hmmmm.

It wasn’t that I was dissatisfied with the novel but it has left me thinking that it could have done more. Or maybe less…

Things I liked:
- It’s an interesting and unique premise.
- The multi-narrative structure.
- The fact that clues weren’t given all in one go.

Things I didn’t particularly like:
- The second half of the book seemed long and drawn out.
- Some (apparently clever) characters (particularly Dr Prince) made questionable decisions / did frankly stupid things.
- Repetitious language and imagery.
- Some of the twists were excellent and some were quite obvious.

I guess it felt like a book with bags of potential which just needed a more brutal edit. But I really appreciate the idea.

Enjoyed this book
Thought it was brilliantly written
A bit of a slow burner, but worth it

Thank you netgalley, Matthew Blake and Harper Collins UK

Wow! What a masterpiece of intrigue & mystery. This is definitely a fantastic standalone novel.

I absolutely was in awe of the suspense Matthew Blake created, giving tidbits at a time to keep us gripped and on the edge of our seats flipping the pages wanting more.

Honestly I had a list of suspects but I was so so wrong and definitely didn't see it coming near the end.

The multiple POV'S give us so much information yet and the diary entry idea was such a good idea. We got to know so much more about Anna.

I definitely will recommend this book to my bookish friends. Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC in exchange for an independent review.