After the Sleepover by Kerry Wilkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**4.5-stars**
After the Sleepover is the sequel in Kerry Wilkinson’s Sleepover series. I finished the first book, I think it was yesterday, it’s all been a bit of a blur, and immediately started this one, flying through and finishing it tonight.
I’m slightly obsessed with this series right now and have spent the entire afternoon wondering if we are going to be getting more. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
This story follows Leah Pearce, who is a bit infamous in her small hometown. Twenty-five years ago, she attended a sleepover with three of her best friends. They did the stuff teen girls typically do at a sleepover, went to sleep, all was well, but in the morning only Leah remained.
The other three girls had disappeared. As the survivor, the town had mixed reactions to Leah. Some believed she had to have information that she wasn’t sharing. How could she have slept through three girls disappearing?!
Others felt she was an unfortunate girl, who just got lucky that night. Certainly she was deserving of sympathy.
All these years later a documentary has been made about the incident, bringing Leah back into the limelight. She never wanted any of that and will be happy when people move on to someone else’s tragedy.
Then three boys go missing during a sleepover where they were tenting out in a field by one of their homes. The mother of one of the missing boys, Jennifer, asks the police to get Leah for her, to stay with her during the subsequent search. She tells them that she and Leah are friends.
Leah is surprised. She knows Jennifer, it’s a small town, and they’re the same age, but she wouldn’t say they were friends. Nor have they ever been. Nevertheless, she feels compelled to go and be with Jennifer in her time of need.
She figures Jennifer reached out to her because who else knows more about missing teenagers than her?
The subsequent investigation makes Leah question a lot of things, even her own past. As she is tied together now with Jennifer, Leah finds herself smack in the middle of it all over again. Will the truth be revealed and is there a connection to Leah’s own troubled past?
I found these two books so incredibly addictive. Wilkinson’s writing is fluid and engaging. I felt like I’ve really gotten to know Leah over the course of this series. As mentioned before, I am seriously hoping this isn’t the end of her story.
I ended up enjoying this even more than the first book. It had a different level of intensity to it. I think mainly because in The Night of the Sleepover the missing girls are in the past perspective. What has happened to them is already done, there’s no changing it.
Yet in this story, the boys that have gone missing, it’s a race against the clock to try to figure out what happened. They can still be saved. I felt like all of the different elements of the story were blended perfectly together.
You still get aspects of Leah’s life outside of the latest case of missing teens. She has stuff going on in her personal life, a hidden relationship, her Dad getting released from prison and getting married, that are equally compelling and I liked going through that with her.
I also found her relationship with Jennifer gripping. Jennifer was an great character. I was hesitant with her from the start. She seemed so, I don’t know, almost in awe of Leah. Like she wanted to be close to her for the wrong reasons, or like she was trying to manipulate something.
It built up a very interesting dynamic and I love how Wilkinson wrote that budding friendship. It was enthralling and had me flying through the pages.
This had a great conclusion. It could go either way. I could be satisfied with this being the end, or I can also see many avenues where Wilkinson could continue to take this story. If there are more books coming in the Sleepover series, you better believe I will be first in line to get a copy.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Bookouture and Bookouture Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I’m so happy that I’ve found a new Thriller author to add to my auto-buy list!!