Sleep With Me

by Joanna Briscoe

Richard and Lelia's child is conceived in a moment of giggling chaos as they dress for a Christmas party. They arrive rudely late and still glowing, and barely register a slight, drab woman in the hall. Sylvie. As their baby grows, so does the presence of Sylvie - she seems to be nowhere, yet everywhere, harmless yet sinister. Richard is seduced by her subtle, inexplicable charm, while Lelia, struggling with Richard's sudden ambivalence towards their baby, finds that she is haunted by painful memories. And Sylvie remains as invisible as she wants to be - that is the source of her power. Beware of mice.

Genres: Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Romance, Love, Family, London

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 4, 2005

About the author

Joanna Briscoe is the author of two novels, Mothers and Other Lovers, which won the Betty Trask Award; and Skin, which was runner-up for the Encore Award. Her short stories have featured in several anthologies. She was a columnist for the Independent and the Guardian and writes regularly for all the major newspapers and magazines. Joanna Briscoe lives in London with her family.

Sleep With Me, was published by Bloomsbury in July 2005. A new tv-tie in edition, published in 2009, accompanies the TV series adapted by Andrew Davies, starring Adrian Lester and Jodhi May.

You is the unnerving and exceptional new novel from Joanna Briscoe, published by Bloomsbury in July 2011. It is a stunning story of sex, memory and family lies.

Watch the new book trailer for You by Joanna Briscoe

Reviews

[Ioanna Bouna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Το ξεκινω ...βαρετο...ε λεω ας του δωσω μια ευκαιρια στην ξαπλωστρα ειμαι ...αρχιζω να πηδαω σελιδες ...ακομη πιο βαρετο ...καπου στην μεση οι αντοχες στερεψαν ....So boring σε ολα του!!

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book drove me mental.

The first 170 pages are difficult to get through, and it is only through sheer will power and hatred of not completing books that i forced myself to continue and read on. It moves at such a slow pace that you begin to wonder what the point of this is going to be.

The characters are all really annoying and ridiculous. The plot is a good idea but so much more could've been done with it.

The last 30 or so pages move much quicker yet at the same time seem to drag in certain parts, which is really infuriating, and the ending gives the impression that the author just couldn't be bothered anymore.


However, having said all of this, i did find this book got under my skin. I started having dreams relating to the book and my dislike for Richard transferred onto some ill-feelings towards my own partner. This is probably the first time a book has affected me in such a way, and it is also suprising considering i found the book to be really annoying and boring.

I wouldn't read this book again, nor would i reccommend it, and i don't think i would bother reading anything else by the same author knowingly.

[Ruthiella · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me. I strongly disliked the writing style and could not understand the character motivations. The premise seemed right up my street however: a seemingly benign wall-flower of a woman infiltrates the lives of a London bohemian couple about to have their first child. The atmosphere of dread was well done, the book had an almost Victorian feel to it, but unfortunately it simply did not appeal to my taste as a reader.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why on earth does this book have a 2.84 overall rating?! Troubling... I loved it. The prose is intimate and fresh and the whole novel is veiled with a sense of foreboding. Generally, I wish every book ended slightly differently, and the same goes for this one. Doesn't really matter though, as the rest of the writing makes up for it. Give it a go

[Steve lovell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember her well – but not her name. And, like Sylvie, she may have been French – or of French extraction. As with Sylvie, she too was not beautiful in the classical sense – she also had the prominent nose of the novel's protagonist. She differed in that her complexion was olive rather than pale. But like Joanna Briscoe's calculating vixen, she caught one's attention – perhaps for her imperfections as much as anything. Not all men are drawn to perfection in their fantasies.

The young woman I am writing of did captivate. It wasn't only me – she drew men in. Some of my male colleagues were on the way to being bewitched too. She liked their attention, seemingly craved it. Unlike Sylvie, she didn't seek to completely control their lives – just be involved with them in the workplace – and out. According to one female friend, who was not impressed with the way she distracted the males she worked with, this exotic addition to staff preferred to save her flirtations for the married fellow. My friend claimed the object of her scorn felt safer as, for them, the line – and it was definitely drawn – would be harder to cross. To use more basic parlance, it was less likely they would place the hard word on her. I had no intention of crossing any line but, for a while, I craved attention from her, some sort of intimacy – and she gave it, in small tantalising doses. I was, I hope, no self-centred plonker like Briscoe's Richard. It was a serious case with him. But, I guess, for a while I was mildly obsessed. I remembered one guy, who was similarly smitten with her, started boasting to me he had only to click his fingers and she would be his for the taking – that he could bed her in a flash. I was terribly offended by that, for, in my view, simply saying those words made him unworthy of her. I resolved to do all I could to prevent that from happening – although how I had no idea. In the end she ditched any connection with the both of us and turned her attention to another bloke and that was that. I have no idea what became of her and it all happened so many decades ago. Whether she posed the question 'Sleep With Me', the book's title, to any of the other male members at the work place I have no idea, but I doubt it. Sylvie was not so reluctant in that department. Reading the tome drew my thoughts back to my own not so forward enchantress.

But it wasn't only with Richard Sylvie played mind games, but he became so over-wrought with lust for her that, in the end, he found he had little resolve about staying true to the woman carrying his baby. He was head over heels with the desire to ravish her for all he was worth. His partner became a focus of this temptress' attentions as well, as happened with other aspects of Richard's wider world. If one, on reading the publication, feels that there is much more than meets the eye here, then that person would be correct – but I'm not giving that away. Richard, Leila and Sylvie form a triangle of hedonistic connivance that can only lead to the ruination of one or more of the participants.

'Sleep With Me' is much deeper than the page turning light and fluffy summer read alluded to on the front cover of my edition. It certainly doesn't get right under my skin as another of its praise-singers writes (Maureen Freely of England’s The Guardian); it being set in the UK. It was not up to the standard of 'You', the only other of the author's oeuvre I've read. With 'You', it is obvious that Briscoe, partner of another very fine author in Charlotte Mendelson, does indeed have the ability to get under the skin – just not with this one.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The day our child was conceived, someone else arrived. She was there as the cells fused, like a ghost.~ We had fucked, my love and I, moments before going out to diner.

Richard and Lelia hardly register the mousy-ish girl at their friends' diner table. Yet it won't be long until Richard meets her again. Sylvie. He thinks she's plain. Little does he know that Sylvie is about to creep into Lelia's and his lives, ever so subtly. Her presence seems sinister yet harmless at first.

Briscoe wrote a eery story about infidelity. I thought the book read like a half-dream, or perhaps a nightmare. Little Sylvie, who was so much like a ghost, creeped me out. Always there in the shadows, yet very real and threatening. The fact that Briscoe's Richard and Lelia are very much your everyday people, seems to make the idea of a Sylvie actually happening to you a possibility. Eep!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm veering between 3.5 and 4 stars for Sleep With Me. It's an interesting book, but all of the characters are so unsympathetic that it was hard going at times. The story revolves around a couple (Richard and Lelia) who through a strange twist of fate become involved with a young, seemingly mousy woman called Sylvie. Little by little, we learn that Sylvie is not all that she seems, and her relationship Richard, Lelia, and their friends becomes more and more twisted.

Well, it reads more like a psychological thriller than anything else. It's an interesting character study, but I came away from it feeling like all the characters were too hard to love. And I didn't really feel very much sympathy or empathy for them.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a certain irresistible appeal and so say most reviewers, but then they ( the readers) all suggest reasons as to why they are unhappy about the way the characters behave, or how the plot unravels, instead of suspending their disbelief and allowing their imagination to embrace the unthinkable : men can be both unpredictable and unreliable, and have their heads turned by both mousy haired retiring females and ladies of unsuitable morality. Attraction is always in the eye of the beholder.
The story has a dream like quality wherein all the main characters appear, at times, like sleepwalkers unable to prevent themselves from following false phantoms and allowing their gullible selves to be fooled by smoke and mirrors.

[Camille · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book had a slow start and peaked my interest during the second act and I was truly vested in finding out what was the true story and motives of the mysterious Sylvie. But at last, after I finished reading my only thought was, "this is the journey you lead me on?" Snore!

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing - the characters (written from both a male and female perspective) are compellingly written - you completely empathise with both of their predicaments. One of my all time faves.

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richar and Lelia are about to become parents. A child conceived while they got ready for a Christmas party with friends. Life has suddenly caught up with them. Now they have to be adults.
Lelia knows right from the start that she is pregnant but senses Richard’s ambivalence to it. As she struggles with constant morning sickness, Lelia is haunted by painful memories of her stay in France as a teenager after her father suddenly died.
Someone else is at the party who Richard barely notices. A drab, small young woman called Sylvie. But after several encounters, Richard takes an interest in her and ask her to write a book review for the national newspaper for whom he works. He also starts receiving anonymous Hotmail messages which appear to be excerpts from a novel which grow increasingly sinister as the weeks go on. Maybe it isn’t a novel but a biography.
And suddenly Sylvie’s everywhere, insinuating herself seamlessly into not only Richard and Lelia’s live but those of their friends and colleagues. Too late they realise that they are in too deep and Sylvie, seemingly a wallflower, holds all the strings.
This was really a psychological thriller and at one point, it reminded me of ‘Fatal Attraction’. Sylvie is initially presented as powerless and yet she holds everyone she targets in her thrall, both men and women.
I really didn’t like Richard and found him to be a really unsympathetic character. Selfish and seemingly indifferent to Lelia’s problems with her pregnancy, he merrily cavorts away with a mysterious woman and is jealous of any male attention that comes her way. I thought that he was a complete creep and at times I felt quite angry towards him.
Lelia was a more sympathetic character in her worry that she was somehow unworthy of him. Which became more poignant when the reader learned of his trysts with Sylvie even on his wedding day. She was the only character that I felt any empathy towards.
Sylvie liked to play mind games which was how she drew people into her web. There is to be no escape for Richard or Lelia as they unknowingly form a triangle which is only going to end in disaster.
The creepy triangle of Richard, Lelia and Sylvie was well portrayed but the last 20 pages felt rushed as if the author was keen to wrap things up quickly. I liked the final page with its uncomfortable ending and the sense of unfinished business.
The novel was published in 2005 hence the references to Hotmail. Internet cafes and Friends Reunited.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joanna Briscoe's 'SLEEP WITH ME' had me hooked from the first page. This enchantingly dark novel had all the stuff to make it a fantastic and unforgettable read, however, it seemed to fall just short of fantastic but still managed to be very memorable. The story about a very odd love triangle between Lelia and Richard, a couple who is very much in love and expecting their first child and the mysterious Sylvie Lavigne had me mesmerized throughout almost the entire novel trying to figure out who this Sylvie Lavigne was, and why she was trying to insinuate herself in Lelia and Richard's lives.

Clues to Sylvie's true identity are revealed, in my opinion, a bit too early leaving few surprises for the ending. Also how Sylvie manages to cast her spell on everyone from Richard and Lelia to some of their best friends and even co-workers leaves the reader to wonder how such a plain and reticent woman managed to have so many people pining after her. I did not feel as though those questions were sufficiently answered, where as in doing so Ms. Briscoe could have really taken this novel to another level. Despite these flaws 'SLEEP WITH ME' is a haunting tale that will stick with the reader for a long time, 3 1/2 stars.

[Cupcakencorset · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story of Richard and Lelia, an English couple, whose relationship is tested by an unplanned pregnancy and by a strange French woman was initially entrancing, much like the mysterious Sylvie herself. The plot was multilayered, the writing rich and evocative, the characters not too sympathetic. After all, it wouldn't do to feel too much fondness for people who would be swayed from their commitments and loves so easily. Their worlds come crashing down, as they must, then reform from the rubble, as they must, but too quickly. The final confrontations are a bit too bloodless, too oblique, to be truly satisfying. And the final scene, of maybe-Sylvie at a park in Paris, left more questions than answers. After all, would Richard have let her walk away as he did, knowing of Sylvie's derangement? I can't believe that he would. And that final doubt undermined the entire finale of the book for me and disappointed me.

[Kerri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite the dirty little book. This story is about Richard and Leila, a couple who are madly in love. Leila gets pregnant, and Richard isn't too sure about how he feels about that. Enter: Sophie (I think this is her name, there was a sophie and a sylvia and it was getting confusing). Sophie is this plain, quite young woman from France, and for some reason everyone falls in love with her. Richard's friend talks about having an affair with her (although at first you don't know its Sophie because his friend nicknames her MW, Married Woman, but she's not even married). Then Richard starts falling for her because she is so mysterious. And then Leila falls for her and runs away with her.

There's a lot of sex and dirty thoughts in this book, however, there's a really interesting twist. A quick read. But not for the innocent mind.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shortly after beginning this book, I feared I'd actually gone for a piece of chick-lit, a metropolitan love story about the young, very much in love couple we meet on page 1. But it quickly turns creepy, very creepy indeed. Who is this mousy Sylvie who insinuates herself into Richard's life, and what is the hold she has on him? And how is Lelia, Richard's partner, involved? Lelia's troubled teenage years provide the beginnings of an answer. While the ending of the book is perhaps predictable in the face of what's gone before, it's the gone-before that's the interesting, troubling and slightly bewitching page-turner. Three stars? Four stars? Not sure. I'm quite relieved to have finished the book though: it was most unsettling.

[Katy · Rating 1 out of 5]

From start to finish I was waiting for something to actually happen. I picked it up as a thriller and I wasn't thrilled at all. Some woman comes into this couples life and starts sleeping with them both while she's living with another lad and having a thing with the couples friend. That's pretty much it. Oh, apart from the fact that this woman had a thing with the female part of the couple when she was a child which in itself was quite disturbing.

Honestly? Don't bother. I couldn't wait to get it finished and back in the library.

[Trix Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sat and read this book in one sitting, hungry to discover where the author would go with the story. On reflection I can see that this was because the book was so slow to get going that I expected it to be the build up to a huge, earth-shattering finale. Sadly, the ending was rushed, and dissatisfying, with a very obvious twist.

Would I recommend this book? If the concept of stalking intrigues you, you have nothing else lined up to read & you can get hold of a copy for free then I'd give it a go. I'm certainly glad I didn't pay for the book and I won't be reading it again.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before finishing: Sylvie is not a human being, she is a plot device. Even if the book is beautifully written and I find it sexier than 50 shades (OK, that's not that hard to do, but still) the whole thing doesn't work for me. I am not stupid, readers aren't stupid. I was just waiting for the characters in the book to stop their stupid and when they did, I was like OMG finally. The book does not surprise me one bit. Yet, I have to say the sexual scenes are painted well and the book did enthrall me to some point.

[Jean St.Amand · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was truly one of the most bizarre stories I've ever read....it had a bit of a slow start but then it became very hard to put down as the bizarre twists started coming. All the characters were quite unlikable and unsympathetic however that wasn't enough to "turn me off ". It would be a good book to read again because so many things in the first 3/4 of it would make more sense knowing how everything tied together in a strange warped creepy bow.

[Sheu Quen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This must have been part dark romance, part psychological thriller because I'm sorry to say but it fucked with my mind so much and I could never keep track of the many instances that Sylvie Lavigne aka Mazarine had gone to such extents to ruin another person's life. It was this and that and this again and that again and then, whaaat? Nope. Nope. Nope. Just glad I'm done with it finally.

[Caroline Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading this years ago and decided to give it a go. The character Richard went on a bit and I can't believe a character like Sylvie would be able to do what she did! However I really enjoyed the book and you find out more about Sylvie towards the end. A good change from fantasy novels that I have been reading.

[Jaklien De Muynck]

Boringgg....

[Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - 3 is very generous!!! Very very slow to start, not much better when the story actually started ... cursing my sister for making me read it!!!

[tinalouisereadsbooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

'The day our child was conceived, someone else arrived. She was there as the cells fused, like a ghost.' Richard and Lelia's child is conceived in a moment of giggling chaos as they dress for a Christmas party. When they arrive, rudely late and still glowing, they barely register a slight, drab woman in the hall. Sylvie. As their baby grows, so too does the presence of that barely noticeable figure. Slowly Richard finds himself seduced by Sylvie's subtle, almost imperceptible charm. As he grows more ambivalent about the approaching birth of his child, Lelia finds herself haunted by painful secrets of her past. And Sylvie seems to be nowhere, yet everywhere. She's as invisible as she wants to be, and that is the source of her power. Beware of mice. How far can you trust even those you love?


My Thoughts:

I found this book in the ‘honesty bookshop’ at Hay on Wye and picked it up because I felt it fell in the genre of domestic thrillers.

It certainly was a strange book, very deep and I also thought disturbing. I didn’t really like any of the characters and did feel that in the end they all deserved each other.

I didn’t enjoy this book how I thought I may have done. It was very quick to read and started out quite promising but then it just lost it’s edge. The book did have a creepiness to it but I can say that is my only positive.

Not really a book I would recommend but then we all different and I have seen some positive reviews.

[Azmi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contrary to other reviewers, I think the opening chapters are interesting, but it gets boring and boring to a point I don't know what's the point of it all. And I agree with others - all characters are annoying, except for Sylvie. The author described her interestingly. The idea seems fresh but badly conveyed.

[Bianca Nauwelaerts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zeer leuk boek om te lezen en je wil telkens meer weten over wat er nog gaat komen. In het begin vond ik het een beetje moeilijk om in het verhaal te komen maar eens je vertrokken bent weer een boek om moeilijk weg te leggen.

[Sabrina Loguercio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ritmo abbastanza scorrevole nonostante alcune digressioni a tratti ripetitive e pedanti, nella prima parte.
Mi piace che le vicende siano narrate da due punti di vista.
La trama si sviluppa in modo veloce soprattutto nella seconda parte. Lo consiglio!

[Jolieg G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het duurde even voor ik in het verhaal zat... daarom ook 3 sterren.
Kan begrijpen dat er gestopt wordt met dit boek.... ikzelf ben gelukkig door blijven lezen.
Het gaat over een affaire - stalking -
Waarom er gestalkt wordt.... dat wordt pas aan het eind duidelijk.
Licht erotisch met spanning.

[Isabel Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Não sei muito bem o que dizer acerca deste livro.
Gostei da escrita mas achei a história um pouco confusa e nem sempre me conseguiu prender a atenção. Não recomendo particularmente.

[Fluturiinlivada · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stelute ca dupa cele 100 de pagini o citesti pe nerasuflate. E o carte infricosator de senzuala, plina de nebunie (atat la propriu cat si la figurat). O recomand.