Sleep with Me

The story is exactly as described in the reviews ... dark, haunting, twisted, well written but I somehow it manages to fall short of a really great read. If you enjoyed this, do read `Damage' by Josephine Hart as well, but if you're between the two, I'd agree with a previous reviewer, and suggest you go for "Damage" instead

What a strange and vivid imagination Joanna Briscoe has. The quality of this book is like the dreams you have when you're feverish. The plot centers around an odd vampiric woman called Sylvie, who sets out to wreck the lives of a glossy London couple, Richard and Lelia. She subtley gets under both their skins, controlling their emotions, their lusts, their lives. In the process she exposes what awful self-obsessed people Richard and Lelia are, but that doesn't make us dislike Sylvie any the less. Briscoe's skill is in then turning the tale on its head. Just when you wish Sylvie would just go away and stop trying to wreck these people's lives, you find out more about her, about her motivations, and how by destoying this couple, she hopes to save herself. Some critic called this book, 'like Ian McEwan but with better sex scenes' which is true. It is like early McEwan, before he went up his own backside and started writing longwinded and dull novels about the lives of surgeons. The sex scenes are very unusual. They are vivid and visceral and believable, yet curiously unerotic, you always feel the sex is purely there as a means of mind control or maybe a way of blotting out disturbing memories of the past. Still, all in all, a very compelling yet nightmarish read.

Although the reviews below are full of praise, none of them suggest what a truly gripping, enjoyable read this is...I tried Sleep With Me just because it's had a rave review from Jonathan Coe, another great British author, and how right he was. It's one of the most addictively absorbing, thrilling, sexy, witty novels I've read for years, with an amazing sense of place, great characters...I was up until 3 a.m. reading it, and am recommending it to EVERYONE. A must-read.