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Sign up todayThe Sleep Room
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Learn moreFrom Edgar nominee F. R. Tallis comes his latest tale of psychological suspense—and a brilliant reinvention of the ghost story.
When promising young psychiatrist James Richardson is offered the job opportunity of a lifetime by the charismatic Dr. Hugh Maitland, he is thrilled. Setting off to take up his post at Wyldehope Hall in deepest Suffolk, Richardson doesn't look back. One of his tasks is to manage Maitland's most controversial project—a pioneering therapy in which extremely disturbed patients are kept asleep for months. If this radical and potentially dangerous procedure is successful, it could mean professional glory for both doctors.
As Richardson settles into his new life, he begins to sense something uncanny about the sleeping patients—six women, forsaken by society. Why is Maitland unwilling to discuss their past lives? Why is the trainee nurse so on edge when she spends nights alone with them? And what can it mean when all the sleepers start dreaming at the same time? In this atmospheric reinvention of the ghost story, Richardson finds himself questioning everything he knows about the human mind as he attempts to uncover the shocking secrets of the sleep room.
Frank Tallis is a writer and practicing clinical psychologist. He has held lecturing posts in clinical psychology and neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry and King’s College London and is one of Britain’s leading experts on obsessional states. In 1999 he received a Writers’ Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain, and in 2000 he won the New London Writers Award.
Matthew Brenher, originally from London, now lives in Los Angeles. His theatrical background includes performances in no fewer than twenty Shakespearean productions, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo in Romeo & Juliet, and the title role in Henry V. In Los Angeles, he played Claudius in Hamlet, Cassio in Othello, Antony in Antony & Cleopatra, Antipholous of Syracuse in Comedy of Errors, and Orsino in Twelfth Night. Other theater includes: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Trigorin in The Seagull, Alistair in Shaw’s The Millionairess, Jerry in Pinter’s Betrayal, the title role in Dracula, and George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which he was awarded best performance by a lead actor/drama by Stage Scene LA 2009–2010. He’s performed in new plays, most recently in A Bitter Fruit for Palestine, Vulcan in Love’s Mistress at the famous Globe theater in London, and Petko in an acclaimed production of The Mapletree Game. On television, he played “Mad” Marcus for six months in the now defunct British soap Brookside. Other television includes: Rules of Engagement, Bodyguards, The Blind Date, Starhunter, The Grid, Eastenders, and Nostradamus. Films include Execution, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Stay Shy, and The Boy Who would Be King. He works in commercials and industrials and is an accomplished voice-over artist.
Reviews
“Clever, spooky…An elegantly constructed psychiatric gothic, all spires and gargoyles and ghostly echoes—the sort of vast, dread edifice we sometimes build around ourselves when the lights go out.”
“I found the novel fascinating…Tallis has crafted a skillful exercise in neo-Gothic horror. If you’d like to spend some time in a fictional madhouse—as opposed to a nonfictional madhouse wherein strange beings conspire to bring down the government—The Sleep Room might provide welcome relief.”
“Tallis is in fine form in this gothic flavored chiller set in the 1950s. The remote, seaside village makes the perfect venue for this mystery with ghostly elements, which is punctuated by moments of violence made even more shocking by the old fashioned tone. The twist, when it comes, may not come as a complete surprise, but the journey is a very creepy, rewarding one.”
“Being a clinical psychologist, Tallis excels at getting the medical details right, and this effortless expertise makes it easy to relax into the story. Before too long, however, the reader will notice something off-kilter about the narrator, though the meaning behind this subtle irregularity doesn’t become apparent until the end…Like all good stories, ghostly or not, there is a twist at the end of The Sleep Room…The second measure of a good ghost story, however, is whether it delivers some wicked chills, and in that regard The Sleep Room, with its creepy narcosis treatment room, definitely succeeds.”
“Clinical psychologist Tallis…explores the mysteries of the human mind and the nature of reality so skillfully that his final twist can be easily accepted in this novel of psychological suspense that’s firmly grounded in fact.”
“Layering several familiar elements expertly, Tallis creates a deliciously creepy mood of neogothic suspense.”
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