When I Wake

She goes to sleep in her bed. She wakes somewhere else. And then another woman is found dead.

Elena Baptiste has built a quiet, respectable life on the Caribbean island of St. Mary. At thirty-six, she is a devoted wife, a respected secondary-school teacher, and the last person anyone would associate with murder.

Until she wakes on her kitchen floor at 4:17 in the morning.

Barefoot. Mud on her legs. A strange earring nearby.

And no memory of how she got there.

Hours later, a woman is found murdered.

Then Elena receives a photograph taken in the middle of the night.

I saw you.

When a second woman dies, the questions become impossible to ignore. Elena’s husband, Daniel, is hiding something. Their observant neighbor seems to know more than she’s saying. Inspector Adrian Clarke is beginning to notice a pattern. And every new victim carries an unsettling connection to a girl Elena has spent more than twenty years trying to forget.

As the bodies multiply and fragments of Elena’s childhood begin clawing their way back to the surface, she becomes terrified of the hours between midnight and morning.

Because someone is lying.

Someone is watching.

And someone knows exactly what happens after Elena falls asleep.

But the most frightening question isn’t who is killing the women of St. Mary.

It’s what Elena will discover when she wakes.

When I Wake is a dark, twist-filled psychological thriller about buried trauma, obsession, marriage, betrayal, and the terrifying secrets we keep—even from ourselves.

Perfect for readers who love unreliable narrators, morally complicated characters, shocking revelations, Caribbean-set suspense, and thrillers that make you question everything you thought you knew.