Before I Wake
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Tragedy can strike at any time. In a single moment of distraction, in one instant’s miscalculation.
One gorgeous spring day, three-year-old Sherry Barrett is injured in a hit-and-run accident. Her devastated parents, Simon and Karen, wait by her bedside, hoping for a miracle. Told that she will never recover, they agree to remove her from life support. And then the miracle occurs. Sherry doesn’t die. But neither does she wake.
Meanwhile, Henry Denton, who was driving the truck that nearly killed Sherry, attempts suicide. Unable to die, he finds himself in a place of darkness, somewhere between this world and the next. Haunted by his own guilt, Henry struggles to understand this limbo, and what he must do to free himself.
Under the pressure of caring for their child, Simon and Karen’s marriage is pushed to the point of collapse. And then pushed even further by the undeniable fact that their little girl, trapped in her living death, has become a healer.
'A stunning debut. Robert Wiersema’s novel is original, thought-provoking and downright wonderful' Michael Connelly
'The kind of storytelling instincts that make you care about the answer to the one question that really counts: What happens next?' Andrew Pyper
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this impressive debut, Wiersema crafts an intelligent, contemplative supernatural thriller replete with well-rounded characters, artless dialogue and a plot that, while imbued with the unexplained, develops organically, revealing its secrets at just the right pace. In the novel's opening pages, three-year-old Sherry Barrett, an only child, is rendered comatose in a hit and run accident. What follows could have been a typical thriller full of cartoonish villains and escalating peril; it also could have been a treacly fairy tale about God's miraculous healing power. Happily, Wiersema steers clear of these well-traveled roads and, by way of multiple first-person narratives, tells an engrossing story of flawed but genuinely good people who must bear up under the stress of loss, betrayal, unwarranted miracles and unconventional spiritual warfare. Particularly well-imagined is the purgatory of sorts that Henry, the truck driver, must endure after he fails to come forward after the accident. Reminiscent of Wim Wenders's film Wings of Desire, Henry's nature, longings and environs paint a poignant picture of souls in need of redemption. While some readers may find one of the novel's final revelations less original than the rest of the story, Wiersema gets nearly everything else right, and the result is an engaging, emotionally resonant read.
