Don't Wake Up by Liz Lawler

If I see a recommendation on a reading list by an author I've never heard of I like to go for it sometimes. You never know when you'll discover a new favorite writer. Time will tell with this one but the premise of this spine-chiller intrigued me.

Alex Taylor, a young emergency room doctor, wakes up strapped down to a table in an operating theater. Her last memory is getting dressed up to go out to meet her boyfriend in hopes of an engagement ring. At first, she thinks that she must've had an accident and has forgotten the details due to trauma. But soon she is faced with a person wearing surgical scrubs and a mask telling her about the gruesome things that will be done to her while under anesthesia. The next thing Alex knows she is awake in a hospital room wearing her dress again. She is physically fine except for a bump on her head and everyone is telling her she was found in a car park and that she must've been hit by a branch and passed out during a storm. Police can't find any evidence whatsoever of the ordeal she describes, so Alex is forced to carry on as usual.

But soon other strange events lead Alex to be sure that what happened to her wasn't in her imagination. While Alex is on duty a young nurse turns up in the ER and while dying, she repeats the same words that were spoken to Alex during her experience. Then Alex comes across another young woman in her building's carpark that has been run over but it seems clear that she was moved to that location. When a third young woman is found murdered in the hospital it's clear that Alex is in peril.

People keep not believing Alex. In fact, she herself is soon under suspicion for the murders. It's frustrating but the absence of any evidence to support Alex's story creates ambiguity in the reader, too. Throw in an oft alluded to trauma in Alex's past and what appears to be a near fatal drug error on her part and there's just the right amount of doubt planted in the reader's mind about what happened to Alex. Throw in her drug and alcohol use on the job and the doctor's credibility is shot. I love stories that have an unreliable narrator (think Gone Girl or Girl on the Train) and this one definitely had me questioning Alex's reality.

Even with all the true crime that happens out there this plotline requires the suspension of disbelief, for sure. But if you love a good twisty thriller then this is for you.