Book Review: “If She Wakes” by Michael Koryta
If you’re looking for a fast summer read loaded with pedal-to-the-metal action and relentless suspense, have I got the book for you: If She Wakes by Michael Koryta.
Product Details: Hardcover, 400 pages
Retail Price: $28.00
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-29400-3
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
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“If She Wakes” Summary and Review
Photo: Hachette Book Group
Koryta is one of my all-time favorite thriller writers, and this new title is one of his best yet. Here’s a brief synopsis: After surviving a mysterious car crash, Tara Beckley has become the victim of locked-in syndrome. She’s aware of everything that’s happening around her hospital bed, but she can’t move or communicate. The insurance investigator assigned to her case, Abby Kaplan, is a traumatized ex-stunt driver trying to escape her past life.
As Abby digs deeper into the case and comes to grips with the ghosts that haunt her, she stumbles upon a deadly mystery — and realizes that Tara might hold the key to solving it. What she doesn’t realize is that a relentless killer is closing in, too, determined to find out what Tara knows.
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With compelling characters, smooth pacing, and a vivid sense of place (most of the book takes place in Maine), If She Wakes is just as well-written as it is thrilling. Koryta masterfully and mercilessly ratchets up the tension as the book hurtles toward its intense climax, which includes a rubber-burning showdown between a train, a Jeep and Dodge’s 700-horsepower Challenger Hellcat. I tore through If She Wakes in near-record time, desperately flipping pages to learn how it would all turn out.
If reading this book leaves you hungry for more Koryta-crafted thrills, you’ll be in for a treat, because he’s written 13 other books. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but I’m especially fond of The Cypress House, The Prophet, and Those Who Wish Me Dead.
If She Wakes easily holds its own with those previous titles. It’s an addictive, gripping choice for your next beach vacation or stay-up-until-dawn reading binge.
If She Wakes can be purchased from Amazon, the publisher, or your local independent bookseller.
A longtime editor/writer and recently transplanted Hoosier, Caleb Cook lives in Xenia, Ohio. His favorite activities are reading and listening to music, although he occasionally emerges from the heap of books and vinyl records in his basement to stand blinking in the sunlight. Once fully acclimated to the outside world again, he can be observed hanging out with his wife, attempting a new recipe in the kitchen, attending movies, walking the dog, or wandering into a local brewery to inquire about what’s on tap. See more articles by Caleb.