Review: 'Lock Me In' by Kate Simants

I love me a good thriller, especially one in which our protagonist begins to question their own sanity. We all have moments where we doubt the things we see or hear, and I love exploring that emotion in fiction. Lock Me In first grabbed my attention with its cover and blurb, but there is a lot more to Simants' debut than meets the eye. Thanks to Harper Impulse, One More Chapter and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 10/3/2019
Publisher: Harper Impulse and Killer Reads; One More Chapter

Whatever you do, don’t open the door… By day, Ellie Power has a normal life. She has a stable home, a loving boyfriend, a future. But at night, she suffers from a sleep disorder. She becomes angry, unpredictable, violent. Her mother locks Ellie in her bedroom every night, to keep them both safe. Then one morning, Ellie wakes up, horrified to find the lock on her bedroom door smashed from the inside. She is covered in injuries, unable to remember anything about the night before. And her boyfriend Matt is nowhere to be found…

Lock Me In is a novel about hidden trauma and repressed memory. Ellie has no recollection of her fugues, the nights she loses to her sleep disorder, but she can feel they must be horrible, shameful even. This topic of fear and repression, of perhaps being your own worst nightmare and not being able to trust yourself, is a brilliant take by Simants. As a debut author she really managed to find a theme that will somehow strike a chord with every reader. Every person, family, culture and country has some underlying trauma that we tell ourselves stories about, that we lie about, things we lock away until they become too big to face.Towards the end of the novel, Simants explores this theme on a much bigger level, which surprised and intrigued me. Without spoiling anything, it was a great way of connecting the narrative to the real world. It's a surprisingly emotional topic for a psychological thriller, but one that will definitely engage the reader.

The narrative of Lock Me In is split between two different narrators. Ellie Powers narrates her own experiences in the first person, giving us an insight into her psyche as she begins to lose confidence in herself and everything she's been told. She has been locked in, by herself, by her mother, and by her own experiences. The second string of the narrative is told by DS Ben Kwon Mae who is investigating the disappearance of Ellie's boyfriend. Ellie and Ben have a history, which allows for the two of them to build up quite an interesting relationship. In Ben's case, it is a little harder to initially see how his own personal story plays into the theme of trauma and repression. It's worth waiting for though, because once Simants begins to unravel more of his background it definitely pays off. There is a twist towards the end of the novel, of course, which you will anticipate slightly if you have experience with the genre. The ending and some of the reveals feel a little too neat at times, but this can be forgiven with it being a debut. It also helps that Lock Me In is utterly gripping nonetheless.

This is Simants' debut novel, but there is a confidence to her writing that is envy-inducing. She ramps us the suspense slowly but surely and you find yourself caring more and more about both narrators. At times Ellie falls a little bit flat as a narrator, but this makes some sense considering her entire life has seen her locked in. Lock Me In feels like only part of the story, and this is a good thing! There is clearly a past to both Ellie and Ben that Simants makes real to the reader. As mentioned above, the past and what it means is the major theme in Lock Me In and Simants employs it very well. She avoids falling into certain thriller/suspense traps, like vilifying mental illness or making it a convenient excuse, which I really appreciated. Lock Me In made me really excited for Kate Simants future work.

I give this book...

4 Universes!

Lock Me In is a gripping read that will have you thinking and wondering whenever you're not reading it. It's a great debut by Simants and the perfect read for anyone looking for a more suspenseful book over Christmas.