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Catriona Milton is London’s most beautiful supermodel, living the ultimate life of luxury, working with the biggest brands, and dating one of the hottest football players. The trade-off?: Cat’s biggest secret—her narcolepsy—and the hallucinations and nightmares she experiences from her disease. When Cat receives a call from her twin sister, Janice, that their father has died, Cat returns to her hometown of Blackfield. She has a run-in with a few of her father’s old biomedical colleagues, as well as her doctor at the funeral. After Cat’s hallucinations become stronger and more visceral, she begins to look into her father’s death at the request of his apparition. The supermodel soon finds herself investigating a pharmaceutical drug war between companies who aim to capitalize on Cat and her condition.
Blending fashion, medicine, action, and a little surrealism, this novel is a fast-paced, suspenseful read that brings up questions of reality and perception. The idea that people’s realities and perceptions are different is popular in recent science fiction media, and the author’s idea to explore this through a medical lens is an interesting twist. The author also takes care to dive into many scientific principles and relate them in an easy-to-understand manner as the protagonist, Cat, takes a deeper dive into understanding her narcolepsy and hallucinations. Another interesting aspect of the book is the relationship between Cat and her twin sister along with the one between Cat and her roommate, Ebba, who is a model. In both relationships, the women are polar opposites of each other in looks and personality, and this is used as a critique on society’s expectations about appearances and beauty.