Four years ago, twenty-five-year-old Anna Ogilvy is found covered in blood and in a deep sleep at a campsite. Her two best friends are found nearby stabbed to death, and her parents have received a text from Anna, confessing to the murder. Anna’s deep sleep turns out to be a years-long coma, and she is given the moniker Sleeping Beauty. The prince tasked to wake her up is Dr Benedict Prince, a forensic psychologist who specializes in homicides committed whilst asleep. His dilemma: he grows to care for Anna and care about her story, yet as much as he wants her to wake up, her regaining consciousness means she’ll have to stand trial for her friends’ murders.

Anna O has a compelling hook, and the mystery behind what actually happened the night of the murders is gripping stuff. What actually happened that night? The only person who can tell us is fast asleep. And, if she committed these murders while asleep, can she actually be held criminally liable? The book also begins with the factoid that we spend about a third of our lives asleep, so adds another layer of intrigue.

Some elements don’t quite work as well: the conceit of a camp where people pay ridiculous amounts of money for their group to be split up into Hunters and Survivors, with the objective to be the last team standing after an overnight ‘battle’ just seems stupid. I get it for plot purposes, and I can imagine some terrible CEOs deciding that will be fun for company team building, but for wealthy families to have a fun weekend out? That stretches credulity. And for Anna’s wealthy family to randomly decide to do it, and also randomly decide to invite Anna’s two best friends is really more a plot device than an event that actually makes sense.

Anna and her friends also seem much younger than their mid-20s. There were occasional lines that reminded me Anna was an adult professional writer, but for most of the book, I kept picturing her and her friends as university students who publish their magazine as a side hustle. There’s something very young about the concept behind their publication, more like teenagers wanting to be edgy than adults who actually are.

Still, the twists and turns were interesting, and the big reveal made sense. When the events of that evening and the killer’s motive were revealed, there was that satisfying buzz. I did guess the big reveal, but not till fairly late, and it was nice to see how Blake dropped all these little clues along the way.

However, the major snag for me was how unnecessarily long Blake dragged out the ending. Without giving away spoilers, Dr Prince ends up moving to a different country maybe three fourths of the way through. A ‘mysterious’ patient (okay, it’s Anna; the book makes a big deal about who she could be, but duh) books an appointment, and what follows is a game of cat and mouse that just seems artificially drawn out rather than natural. You know how Nancy Drew books would end chapters on cliffhangers so that readers would keep reading? It kinda felt like that, except not done as well. Anna and Dr Prince have their appointment, and instead of Anna saying why she’s there, she then asks to meet Dr Prince for dinner. And when they meet for dinner, she then acts really coy and suggests they meet again at another time.

I understand that the author wanted to draw out the tension. But it just doesn’t work. Dr Prince’s anxiety also keeps rising with each meeting, since he’s afraid Anna plans to kill him, but because the set-up is so stupid (why would he keep meeting with her then?), I just got to the point where I wanted to scream at both characters to do something! Anything!

Unfortunately, Anna is a much more compelling character while she remained asleep. When the reveal does come, the events of that fatal evening do make sense…but they also remove so much of what made Anna interesting. The reveal deflates the Anna O mythos, and while it’s natural for the reality to be less interesting than the myth, it still felt like a letdown.

Worse, after things between Anna and Dr Prince finally come to a head, and the book finally seems like it’s reached its natural conclusion, there’s still a full other chapter to go. The epilogue reveals some new details, and these are indeed important to know, but they were also pretty easy to figure out from the rest of the novel. At the very most, this part merited a page, maybe two. Stretching it out into a full chapter just repeats a whole bunch of information, and I kept flipping the pages waiting to see if there was another major shocker that would make this section merit its length. (There wasn’t.)

So, overall, Anna O is a pretty good book. The hook is interesting, and even though I found the big reveal to be a let down, I still think the central mystery is fascinating. The novel just failed to stick its landing; the last few chapters were boring and unnecessarily drawn out, and the final chapter was the epilogue no one needed.

+

TW: animal death

+

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.