Don’t Wake Up

Liz Lawler

Average Rating 6/10 (1 Review)

Alex Taylor wakes up tied to an operating table. The man who stands over her isn't a doctor.

The choice he forces her to make is utterly unspeakable.

But when Alex re-awakens, she's unharmed - and no one believes her horrifying story. Ostracised by her colleagues, her family and her partner, she begins to wonder if she really is losing her mind.

And then she meets the next victim.

So compulsive you can't stop reading.

So chilling you won't stop talking about it.

Don't Wake Up is a dark, gripping psychological thriller with a horrifying premise and a stinging twist...

'Don't Wake Up is an engrossing read that successfully challenges perceptions and prejudices and does a good job of concealing its secrets.'

Review by Ben Macnair (010825) Rating (6/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 6/10
Don’t Wake Up starts with a chilling encounter between Dr Alex Taylor and an unseen assailant, as she comes to in an operating theatre, forced to make decisions that no-one should have to make.

Of course, when she wakes up, she is as right as rain, has no injuries, and it as if nothing has happened to her. From this opening chapter, things start to unravel for Alex and her well-ordered life. Her safe relationship, her relationships with her mother, even the support of her colleagues come into question, as things take more and more twists and turns.

The novel has more than fifty chapters, and is only 360 pages long, and as each development in the story comes along, they all make sense within the narrative.

Does Dr Taylor have fantasies? Does what she claimed happened to her, actually happen to her? Is she telling the right people what she needs to tell them? As more victims come forward though, it would appear that there is some truth to what Alex has been saying, but do they fit into her narrative, or a bigger story.

Although in terms of gore there is not much here, some of the passages of the book are chilling, and the antagonist, when they are revealed is both surprising but also fitting. The inclusion of Police officers, both as friends of Dr Taylor’s, and as characters wanting to make a name for themselves in their careers do not add that much to the plot.

As the book races towards its denouement, Alex’s life has completely changed. Although her career is not what it could have been, she has a new love interest, and her innocence in terms of what has happened can be proven.

However, some of the plotting is preposterous, and Alex seems to have a lot of talents, such as the Helicopter licence she just happens to have, so she can impress a potential love interest, who’s child she has treated at the Swimming Pool, or how well her colleagues seem to speak of her. The story is well told, well plotted, and goes along at quite a pace, so it doesn’t take long to read at all, but an extra edit, and maybe the removal of some superfluous characters and plot-points would have made this interesting book far more readable.
Ben Macnair (1st August 2025)