Book Review: Sleep Tight by J. H. Markert
Creepy, cultish, and hunting down a serial killer are all up my alley, so of course I had to check out this novel! You can read my full review of Sleep Tight by J.H. Markert below.
Book Information
Tess is reeling from the recent affair that her husband just had. Not only that, but the execution of the serial killer, Father Silence, who once terrorized her small hometown, is that same day. All of those problems seem small, though, when Tess’s parents get murdered and her daughter gets kidnapped. Not knowing if it’s a copycat of Father Silence or something more sinister, Tess puts her detective badge on and travels back to her small hometown in order to find answers. For better or for worse.
Review | Heidi Dischler
I was so excited for this book when I picked it for Book of the Month. Serial killers? Check. Mystery? Check check. Unresolved trauma? Sign me up. I’m going to be honest though, many things disappointed me about this book even if I found the whole storyline intriguing.
First off, I felt no attachment to the characters whatsoever. I didn’t necessarily like Tess. I didn’t like Justin, her husband. I sorta kinda liked Daniel, but his parts are so minor that I can’t even count him. I liked the kidnapper, oddly enough, because you get a few chapters from his POV. But not liking the main two characters? Yeah, that’s a problem for me. I don’t know what it was about Tess, though, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. I will say that not liking these characters made the stakes really really low, so I never felt the need to pick the book back up except for an obligation to finish it.
This book had a LOT going on. There were so many threads and so many leads that I honestly got lost so many different times. I think some of it was a little too farfetched, but that’s just me. Noah in general was that way in my opinion, and you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve read the book. It just left a lot of questions and not much answered because it was too much at times when jumping from thread to thread and ALL of the different view points (that bothered me more than everything else only because I really hate when books do that).
Okay, enough about the bad. I think the good things are pretty good and well executed. I like the kidnapper like I mentioned above. He was nuanced and had a backstory that was… wow. Yeah. I liked that there was a lot of depth in the story and that things often got very creepy when it came to the cults mentioned in the book. I also like the secrets surrounding Tess (even though I, for the most part, guessed what was coming when it came to her hidden memories).
The plot, while also having too many strings, was honestly really thought out and you can tell just by reading it that the author took a long time to weave this web. I can appreciate that while also thinking that the web was a little too intricate.
Overall, I liked this book, but many things kind of took me away from liking it a lot. I would definitely rate this a meh with 3/5 stars. The serial killer aspect was cool, the plot was awesome with the pacing, but I just didn’t connect as much as I wish I would have. If you like creepy, serial killer books, I would check out The Night Shift by Alex Finlay, or Where He Can’t’ Find You by Darcy Coates.
Source: Book of the Month
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
