Before I Wake

At the outset of British author Taylor’s gripping first novel, 15-year-old Charlotte Jackson has been lying in a coma in a hospital after being hit by a London bus in an apparent suicide attempt six weeks earlier. Charlotte’s 43-year-old mother, Sue, looks for clues in her daughter’s secret diary to the girl’s rash actions. Charlotte’s father, Brian, is sure that the bus driver’s claim that she deliberately stepped in front of the bus is a lie. When the suspicious Sue catches her husband lying—about his whereabouts on a morning when he should have been at his office, for instance—he questions her sanity. Sue soon realizes that she can trust no one. Flashbacks from two decades earlier chart the course of her abusive relationship with ex-boyfriend James—whose reappearance in the present ratchets up the suspense. This psychological thriller will resonate long after the final page. [em](June) [/em]