Cass Green

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
This is a very dark book with scenes of violence and murder, including disturbing scenes where young women with sleep disorders are unable to help defend themselves. There are also scenes of attempted sexual assault.

I first heard about Sleep Tight by C S Green, the first book in the DC Rose Gifford series while watching C S Green at a panel at CYMERA. I am always on the lookout for detective mysteries in an urban fantasy setting, especially those set in the UK and Sleep Tight fits the bill perfectly.

Rose is a police officer whose case doesn’t make sense. It isn’t a whodunnit worthy of infamous detectives, it’s something that is doesn’t make sense – unless you factor in the impossible, the supernatural. But that is something that Rose has been avoiding for a long time, trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist, that the things she sees and feels have a logical explanation.

She’s been managing to do just that until she meets DS Moody and is shown the world of UCIT, the Met’s secret unit that takes on the cases like her current case; supernatural crimes. Rose’s world is turned upside down as she’s not just faced with the truth that things do go bump in the night, but the truth she’s been trying to hide from is inescapable especially if she wants to stop a killer.

My ears had instantly perked up when C S Green talked about DC Rose Gifford having a sleep disorder and how her own experiences had helped her write the book. What I didn’t know until reading Sleep Tight was that there’s even more disability representation in the book. Rose suffers from compulsive skin picking, also known as dermatillomania or excoriation disorder, which I also have, and I have never seen it represented in pop culture. I’ve seen trichotillomania, compulsive hair picking in a TV show before, however, skin picking is not as widely recognised. It was great to see it represented in a book, and done so accurately and authentically.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sleep Tight and loved the UNIT team. This is a series that I will definitely be keeping up with!

P.S. Having also read the Rivers of London series I also want to confirm that the only things that the two series share are a location, London, and the Metropolitan police. The UCIT team has nothing in common with the wizards of The Folly, and if anyone is in further doubt, I hardly think the authors would have been on a panel at a book festival together if there was any actual concern about plagiarism.

For more of my reviews please visit my blog!… (mer)

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
This book deals with a lot of dark themes, including murder, violence, emotional abuse (child and spouse), physical abuse of a child, attempted poisoning of a parent by a child, and child abduction. There are also scenes of drug use and parental neglect shown in flashbacks.

In the first book, Sleep Tight, Rose Gifford helped stop a murderer who was killing women with sleep disorders, and was using a supernatural ability to do so. Her world was turned upside down not just by the revelation that the supernatural existed, but by the fact that the visions she was having of her dead mother were not a sign of mental illness. Rose can see and feel ghosts, and she has absolutely no idea why her mother is hanging around.

In The Whisper House Rose is still coming to terms with what all this means, and as she starts her first real case with UCIT, she’s not quite sure if the team is where she belongs. Her ability to see ghosts terrifies her, and when the team is called to advise on a series of disturbances at a property that looks like a neighbour dispute it’s her abilities and her past that helps her recognise that something else is happening. She’s drawn to the child that lives at 42 Wyndham Terrace, recognising Gregory’s experiences in her own. Things begin to escalate in the house and Gregory goes missing, turning the case into something much more serious.

Like the first book, Green has written an unmissable thriller that is dark and gritty. The Whisper House contains flash back scenes which add another dimension to the story, giving the house a voice of its own to tell the story from its perspective. We learn more about the UCIT team, their personal lives and their history and there’s an intriguing side story that leads to sinister knowledge about Rose’s family. The book ends in a cliffhanger that may help Rose resolve some of the questions she’s been seeking answers to or lead to even more.

As with the first book there continues to be disability representation, this time with the addition of PTSD as Rose struggles to deal with what happened to her in Sleep Tight. I also appreciated a moment of real disability representation when Rose is taking pain medication, co-codamol. Green doesn’t shy away from mentioning that Rose is constipated and feeling bloated, two very common side effects of that particular medication. Even just making a point of including her taking medication and naming it is unusual, let alone referencing the side effects. Rarer still is openly talking about bowel symptoms and conditions even though everyone deals with these things from time to time (we all eat and drink!). For anyone thinking they didn’t need to know this detail, I want to add that this fits perfectly with Rose and the narrative style Green utilises throughout the book. It is just like her to comment on it, take note of it and file it away as not important right now because she has a case to work on. That is exactly what she does in this instance and with many more things that are not case related.

The Whisper House is a great addition to the Rose Gifford series which is proving to be a wonderful addition to urban fantasy crime fiction. Green is slowly teasing out the boundaries of the supernatural in the series, and it’s going to be fun to follow that path with Rose and the team. If you love crime mixed with the supernatural then you’ll love Sleep Tight and The Whisper House by C S Green!

For more of my reviews please visit my blog!… (mer)