Sleep with Me: A Novel

From Publishers WeeklyThe smart, suspenseful U.S. debut of Brit Briscoe (Skin; Mothers and Other Lovers) begins between the sheets as 30somethings Lelia and Richard unknowingly conceive a child before breathlessly skipping across town to a friends Christmas party. Though Richard, a newspaper editor, and Lelia, an academic, struggle with their careers, their values and the question of marriage, they are content in their relationship and their future together. Enter Sylvie Lavigne, a nondescript friend of a friend, new to town, who suddenly, mysteriously appears at their every turn. Richard receives a series of unsettling anonymous emails, serialized snippets of a Victorianstyle novel with macabre overtones. As Lelias pregnancy advances, both Lelia and Richard discover that their domestic calm is bound up in a web of deceit, uncertainty and unresolved memories. Told from alternating points of view, the story follows the couple as they become consumed by their individual doubts and obsessions. Briscoe has a knack for rendering a contemporary, urban setting, and her characters are intelligent and psychologically insightful, believable even as the plot takes its most fantastical twists. (Oct.)Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Product DescriptionA tautly plotted novel of adultery and betrayal.The day our child was conceived, someone else arrived. She was there as the cells fused, like a ghost. In a moment of giggling chaos, Richard and Lelia sleep together while getting dressed for a holiday party. Arriving late and still flushed, they barely register a slight, drab woman who, like a shadow, threatens the happiness theyve achieved. Their reality slowly shifts: Mysterious fragments of a story about a troubled child appear on Richards email. A friend confides his adulterous affair, and Richard voyeuristically hangs on every detail. Richard grows more ambivalent about the approaching birth of his child; he becomes distracted and remote, and Lelia suspects another woman. In her loneliness and longing Lelia makes a surprising decision that nearly destroys the life that she and Richard have worked so hard to create. Told with astonishing clarity from both Richard and Lelias points of view, Sleep with Me is an extraordinary tale of obsession and desire that takes hold, body and soul, and doesnt let go until the final page is turned.From BooklistIn polished, formal prose, British novelist Briscoe (Skin, 1997) delivers an erotic thriller rife with themes of betrayal and obsession. As the novel opens, French literature teacher Lelia and bookrevieweditor Richard, deeply in love, attend a holiday party. In the background lurks Sylvie, a mousy, wraithlike woman whose presence barely registers. Seeing Richard and Lelias relationship with a clarity not possessed by the couple, Sylvie insinuates herself into their lives. Richard, stressed about his friends more lucrative careers and the news that Lelia is pregnant, finds himself vulnerable to Sylvies attentions; he commissions her to write a book review, reads her emails containing fragments of a strange novel, and agrees to meet her for increasingly intimate rendezvous. Meanwhile, Lelia and Sylvie share a history unknown to Richard. Briscoe draws the rituals of seduction in mesmerizing fashion and homes in on the addictive nature of transgression. Even more impressive, though, is the way the contrast between her elegant prose and the oftenrepellent behavior of her characters heightens her novels chilling, creepy atmosphere. Joanne WilkinsonCopyright American Library Association. All rights reservedAbout the AuthorJoanna Briscoe has written two novels: Mothers and Other Lovers, which won the Betty Trask Award, and Skin. She lives in London.