The Edge of Sleep

A Novel

By: Jake Emanuel, Willie Block, Jason Gurley - contributor

Narrated by: Franz Drameh

"Franz Drameh's deeply involving performance embodies these characters and their rapidly deteriorating world."- AudioFile

The Edge of Sleep audiobook is read by Franz Drameh, who plays Matteo Leon in the upcoming TV series of the same name.

What if the whole world fell asleep...and didn’t wake up again?

Dave Torres, a night watchman in a placid coastal town, knows all about sleep troubles. Since childhood, he’s battled terrors and nightmares. Sometimes those battles leak into his waking life, with disastrous consequences for those he loves. Now Dave lives alone and self-medicates to neutralize his dreams. It’s not much of a life, he knows.

The morning after Independence Day, Santa Mira, California, is so quiet Dave can hear the ocean from miles away. Traffic signals blink from red to green over empty intersections. Storefronts remain locked up tight. Every radio station whispers static.

And all over town, there are bodies, lying right where their owners left them. Dead right where they slept.

Dave—along with his ex-girlfriend, Katie, his best friend, Matteo, and Linda, a nurse he’s just met—struggle to unravel the mystery before sleep overtakes them all.

Except the answer to the mystery might lie in the one place that frightens Dave most: His twisted, unnerving dreams. Now Dave and his friends must straddle the liminal boundary between life and death as they fight to save everyone they’ve ever loved—and to keep their eyes open.

Because if any of them falls asleep now, it will be the last thing they ever do.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2022 Jake Emanuel (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"A fresh take on the apocalyptic genre...die-hard fans of the podcast are sure to be pleased." - Publishers Weekly

Amazing book

5 star book the podcast was grand if liked the podcast you should read this

ABSOLUTELY ENTHRALLED!!!

I was ABSOLUTELY ENTHRALLED listening to this!! Im not at all a horror fan, but because of Markiplier i listened to and LOVED TEoS podcast, and now that the tv show is finally releasing, i just had to get into the book! And i loved every unsettling second of it!! An incredible performance and outstanding storytelling, this story continues to enthrall me, no matter how many times ive listened to it!

Couldn't Get Into It

My husband and I listened to the podcast together and loved it so we bought the book before it came out. When it was finally released it was a disappointment. It didn't follow the podcast and unlike the podcast it lacked action. We didn't get past Ch 14.

Love Podcast…this book, ehh…

LOVED the podcast. When the book came out I was excited because I wanted S2 of the podcast so bad. This book is a tough listen. The narrator is trying too hard, kinda cringy, the Mateo character is unbearable - again, trying too hard. Feel unauthentic and disingenuous, where the podcast feels so genuine the way all the characters are narrated and portrayed.

Felt like a rough first draft.

I was intrigued to learn about the Sleepocalypse from another perspective outside the main cast, and in that regard this book did deliver. However, I was not prepared for the several changes in plot that did not seem to serve any purpose. On top of that, the characters we know, Dave, Mateo and the rest, seem to be drastically different than how they are portrayed in the podcast. Standing alone, they are annoying and unlikeable at best. Going through this book feels like reading a rough early draft of the show, or fanfiction. I enjoyed getting bits of lore to the outside world, but all in all I felt this did a disservice to the story built up in the podcast.