Hold me, Thrill me, Kiss me (Sleep with Me - Joanna Briscoe)

Member Name: kirstymack80

Product:	Sleep with Me - Joanna Briscoe
Date:	31/08/05 (270 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: gripping, page turner, well written

Disadvantages: unsettling

Richard and Lelia’s baby is conceived after a giggling fumble before a dinner party at a friend’s house. They arrive horribly late, full of apologies and eager to join in the Christmas festivities. A woman, Sylvie, stands watching them. She is in the background, barely noticeable, and is soon forgotten.

However, very quickly she is beginning to appear all the more frequently in their lives. She is the first person Lelia meets after having her pregnancy confirmed. And Richard who was ‘barely aware of the ghost at all’ seems to be growing increasingly entranced by this quiet, poised, childlike woman.

Beware of mice.

* What I liked *

From the start, this is a page turner. Richard edits the book pages of a newspaper and someone is sending him strange excerpts of a story to his hotmail, which is starting to annoy him. They are increasingly becoming too familiar, although written in narrative the story unfolding is eerily beginning to echo his own life.

Richard's not a native Londoner, he’s originally from Cornwall but has the beautiful, foreign girlfriend, a flat in Bloomsbury and seems happy in his ‘minor smug-arse world’. Or is he? Frankly he comes across as a little pretentious and the more I read, the more I found him fairly unlikeable. He seems to 'forget' half the time his girlfriend is pregnant - eh?!

He pretends to be the doting boyfriend, only as soon as Lelia tells him she’s pregnant, he starts having doubts and the reader can tell he’s not overly keen on impending fatherhood. Lelia, meanwhile, has already had two pregnancies and is obviously having her own misgivings – and with an unsupportive partner she turns to a friend for help.

Sylvie, the ‘mouse’ is probably the most interesting character. A loner without any friends or family, a plain, drab woman whose age is impossible to tell, she appears at their friends’ gatherings yet seems to say very little and not give much away. She is a mystery yet is always in the shadows nearby.

Told in chapters by Richard and Lelia, this is a clever book which manages to show the reader both sides of the story and what the two main characters are thinking and their involvement with Sylvie.

I’ve read similar stories before – ‘Cuban Heels’ is about a woman who stalks a couple and it makes disturbing reading. I wasn’t sure where this book was leading - was Sylvie going to turn out to be the local nutter, determined to split the duo up?! She doesn't appear to be - she's intelligent and thoughtful. She doesn’t play a large part in the first part of the book at all, just flitting in and out. I think this is to allow the characters of Richard and Lelia to be built up and for the reader to understand a little more about their relationship.

Lelia begins to have dreams, something in her past has always haunted her. As her pregnancy progresses, her fears are starting to resurface, and with Richard being side tracked by a best friend on the verge of an affair, and the haunting Sylvie … he’s being far too easily distracted.

Is Sylvie all she seems - frightened and vulnerable? Is Lelia totally oblivious to her boyfriend's true intentions, and just what is Richard playing at chasing a woman when he's about to become a father? All these questions must be asked as a very tightly bound story begins to slowly unravel ...

* Verdict *

I did enjoy this. I'd read a review in a newspaper about it a while ago and was unaware of this author before. I don't usually buy books in hardback but as I had an Amazon voucher owed to me I quickly ordered it. I liked the way Briscoe told most of the story from Richard's point of view - and it's easy to see why he's entranced by the plain Sylvie. He doesn't really seem to be able to commit to anything - his girlfriend, his job, marriage, his baby - and Sylvie is an easy escape from a new life that he doesn’t really want to live.

Independently, Lelia also befriends Sylvie, and this is cleverly done. 'I felt the embarrassment that goes with the knowledge that a great friendship had just started - the meeting of kindrid souls, with a lifetime to discuss so many urgent issues - and though we spoke at length we could hardly meet each other's gaze in our awkwardness of that discomfiture'.

The writing is very descriptive, sometimes almost poetic and there's a lot of emphasis on touch and of soothing and needing, rather than of a sexual nature. This somehow accentuates the very real feelings and emotions that Lelia and Richard are experiencing.

Considering this book has a very provocative title, there are few 'dodgy' scenes - nothing particularly over the top in the rudeness stakes apart from a fair amount of swearing but this is all in accordance with the tone of the book as the characters experience compulsion, love, betrayal and anger. I did feel that Briscoe peppered Richard's chapters with more swearing because it was the man 'speaking' which perhaps wasn't necessary but that's my only real criticism.

Sylvie, far from being a 'mouse' is rather good at playing games. Although I didn't really understand her - she remains very much a closed book - I never really disliked her. The reader may feel sorry for her, especially when placed alongside the self centred Richard and his girlfriend.

I’ve given very little away – there is so much more to this book, with other characters also becoming involved in what is a slow, tantalizing tango designed to confuse and shock. I found myself reading some sentences twice – so descriptive and structured were they.

One can’t help but wonder if there’s a story to be learned from all of this. It's hard to know who to trust in this book - and who to believe. This is psychological manipulation at its best - read it.

* About the author *

Joanna Briscoe has written two other novels 'Mothers and Other Lovers' which won the Betty Trask award and 'Skin'. She has also written short stories and been a columnist for the Independent and the Guardian. She lives in London with her family.

* Details *

RRP £12.99 (£7.49 plus £2.75 on amazon.co.uk)
ISBN 0-7475-7995-4
Hardback
306 pages

The full five stars. Thanks for reading.

Summary: A chance encounter leads to betrayal.