Awakened by Laura Elliott

A thrilling page turner about what it is to be human and the toll of chronic illness.

Release Date: June 10, 2025

From the Publisher:

Science has stolen sleep and awakened a world of horror.

“I’ve been an insomniac all of my life, but I’m not Sleepless and I won’t become Sleepless, just as long as the chips that were put into their heads never get put into mine. There’s little chance of that, since I won’t put the machinery into my brain and neither will Edgar and neither will the Professor, and we’re the only three left who could. I don’t want to be Sleepless…”

Civilisation has ended. In a bid to make us more productive, to give us more time, science took sleep from humanity. But sleeplessness turned people into feral monsters and now a small group of scientists are trapped in the Tower of London, consumed by guilt at what they have done and desperately searching for a cure. And then one day, as the last ravens circle, two miraculous survivors walk into the Tower.

Are they the answer or a terrible question?

I honestly don’t know where to start!

This novel is a debut for Laura Elliott and it is phenomenal. A blend of sci-fi, horror, creeping gothic dread…it is a masterpiece. Dr. Thea Chares is our protagonist, responsible for the end of the world as we know it. Science was twisted to serve capitalism, despite the team of doctors’ seemingly good intentions. Thea became a scientist to cure her mother of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis – a disease that I myself suffer from.

This book became very personal to me, and I found myself enraptured by the in-depth medical research and ponderings of our main character.

While I wouldn’t call this a straightforward horror, it has the slow burn terror of Joe Hill or Kay Chronister. The characters are vibrant and strange, popping off the page with their quirks and their fears. Thea is complex and real, with human faults and conflicting feelings. I was sympathetic to Alex and downright enraged by a few other characters!

Much is left unexplained about exactly how the Sleepless became the feral, vampire-like animals they are, and I think this leads to a kind of psychological terror. With technologies like Neuralink on the horizon (ew), could this seemingly benign chip change the very core of what it is to be human?

As the book progressed I was frustrated and confused (in a good way), and I still feel like I have no idea what happened at the end. Maybe that’s my fault, or maybe that’s the intent: we cannot stop entropy- all things fall to chaos.