While She Was Sleeping

by Suzanne Forster

A USA Today Bestseller He abducts women from their beds at midnight, gagging and terrorizing them and then dumping them, drugged but alive, days later. None of the victims have been able to identify him, and the Seattle police have no leads -- until now . . .There's been a new abduction, but with a terrifying twist -- the latest victim, a cop working on the case, has been found dead. But the police may now have the break they need -- a witness . . . The sole witness is a homeless woman with a shaky memory. Forensic sketch artist Jennifer Nash has been called in by the Seattle PD. Russ Sadler was the victim's ex-partner. He's now the chief investigator -- and the last person Jennifer wants to work with. Their affair left them both burned, but they can't let their emotion interfere. The killer is a lot closer than anyone realizes, and now he has his eye on Jennifer.

Genres: Romance, Suspense, Contemporary Romance, Fiction, Romantic Suspense

426 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Suzanne Forster is living proof of William Shakespeare’s maxim that the uses of adversity are sweet. Suzanne’s writing career began by accident. Literally. A car accident ended her dreams for a career in clinical psychology. During her recovery, she began writing to fill the hours, and before she was well enough to return to graduate school, she’d sold her first book and launched a new career.
Since then Suzanne has written more than thirty novels and been the recipient of countless awards, including The National Readers’ Choice Award for Shameless, her mainstream debut. She’s received recognition for outstanding sales from Waldenbooks and Bookrak, and her recent novel, Unfinished Business, was made into a movie for the Oxygen Network.
Suzanne has a Master’s Degree in Writing Popular Fiction, and she teaches and lectures frequently. Her seminars on Women's Contemporary Fiction at UCLA and UC Riverside were rated outstanding, and her most requested workshop, "The High-Concept Synopsis," is based on personal experience. Her breakout novel, Shameless, sold on a synopsis that triggered a bidding war and garnered her a six-figure contract.
Suzanne has received considerable media attention, including a feature segment on Extra, NBC's news and entertainment magazine, and an Emmy Award–winning "Special Report" on CBS Channel 23 News. Her many print appearances include the L.A. Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Redbook and Orange Coast Magazine

Reviews

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a romance-suspense (emphasis on the romance). Some people won't mind the romance, others may object to it. The sex is what I would consider graphic, but not crudely so. Most of the sex language is pretty flowery - female genitalia is referred to as a "lily pond"and there is plenty of use of other such euphemisms. Although, there is a strangely crude joking moment between the two main characters involving pubic hair in the man's teeth. It felt a bit out of place...

In Seattle, an individual is kidnapping red-heads, torturing them and then dumping them in a park, terrorized, yet alive. But his most recent kidnapping of a police officer ended with her murder. This brings sketch artist and former Seattle PD consultant, Jennifer Nash, on the case with her very irregular methods. Jennifer's presence gets the entire department riled up, but none more so than Russ Sadler, her ex-fiance whose heart was left broken when Jennifer abruptly left 2 years earlier. Jennifer has burned some bridges and is desperately trying to help on the case and reconcile (or at least make peace) with Russ, who is more closed off and belligerent than ever. Part of the reason though stems from the weakness he perceives in himself around Jennifer. He knows that he's vulnerable to her and is hesitant to open up and trust her again. But that may be the only way for them to be able to work together to solve the case and catch a killer.

As a suspense, this was rather engaging and enjoyable. The case was fairly standard, with some really interesting quirks and tidbits thrown in. I'm pretty sure it's standard to have recordings or witnesses for sketch artists, as the possibility of leading the witness is way too great, so Jennifer's indignance over this treatment seems strange. There also seemed to be periodic lack of logic on Jennifer's part that led me to believe she wasn't so smart...in fact, she was sometimes TSTL. But the build up of the case, the lack of clear suspects and the mystery kept me reading. Although, I evidently did guess who the culprit was, but mostly because this person's behavior was absolutely weird from the beginning...disproportionately so and I said, "it's that person!" and I was right. But there was all kinds of evidence to lead me to suspect others at the time, so I can't say there weren't other valid options.

As a romance, this left a bit to be desired. Jennifer had apparently abruptly left Russ, claiming she didn't feel "emotionally safe" with him, which broke his heart. He did throw that one back in her face at one point and made a statement which really let her know how much she hurt him. It left me somewhat satisfied, but there wasn't enough gravity to it and he lightened things up immediately afterwards. In a second chance romance, I want the person at fault to be remorseful. Jennifer had a lot of regret, but it was way too interspersed with her wanting Russ to apologize to her (for some reason) and expecting him to forgive her. It's not like she had a real good reason for running away either, other than being afraid of her feelings. And that apparently came about because of a confusing experiment done by her college mentor...which really had me questioning Jennifer's potential faithfulness. But these two forgive each other and have more sex than discussion, so their relationship didn't feel all that deep. It might have felt better if Jennifer had really been working hard to earn Russ's trust, but she hardly had to do anything.

[Jenny From The Bog · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the story was interesting and suspenseful, I wasn't impressed with how the suspense was created. Forster used the "everyone is a suspect" method; a method that works well when used well. The problem in this story was partly that the suspicious evidence against characters was circumstantial and silly. The killer has a bike...oh, no! so-and-so has a bike too!
The other half of the problem was that I didn't really care enough about the characters to care whether or not any of them did it. The characters, to me, were almost completely lacking in their ability to illicit emotions. With that said, it was interesting and worth the read.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad romantic suspense novel but still a bit run-of-the-mill as there's nothing that lifts it above others of the same ilk. However the balance between romance & suspense is about right & there's lots of twists & turns in the plot which means there's plenty of red herrings, so you're never really sure whodunnit...well, it kept me guessing till the end anyway which is a point in it's favour.

[Jeff Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one can’t decide if it’s a Harlequin Romance or a murder mystery 😞...

[Vickie Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very good"who did it"! Had me suspecting everyone and everything. Only thing I found wrong with this print of the novel we're the typos.

[Kaylen Lacek · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a good easy read. Some romance. Some suspense. Some thriller. I honestly don’t remember much about it and I read it last month if that tells you anything.

[Marca · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mystery written by a romance writer. Cr*p! I try to avoid those, but sometimes I get sucked into the mystery before I realize the book is a romance combo. I find myself in "erotica land" and it is too late to stop reading because I want to see how the book ends. Fortunately, this was an actual book (as opposed to an audio book) so it was easy to skip through the "boom-chicka wah wah" scenes. The male and female leads sounded like sulky or giddy teenagers when the topic turned to their relationship. Yawn. Female lead was supposedly highly educated, accomplished, and well-known, but she was also TSTL. Mystery resolution ended up being kinda silly.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. I thought it would talk about the abductions and what the perp did to them instead it talked about abducted 4 already and it went on and on and on and on about the detective and sketch artist who use to lovers then broke up now they are working on a case together and blah blah blah. Not as good as I hoped.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charchters weren't developed in a way that made you really want to keep flipping' the pages. Like the story, loved the murder, serial killer idea just needed more depth.

[Nenette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story focused more on the love angle rather than the mystery of the serial killer. It was enjoyable just the same.