The Sleepwalkers
A chilling and masterfully crafted teen horror novel guaranteed to keep the pages turning, the mind reeling, and the lamp on any reader's bedside table on long after midnight. Privileged and popular Caleb Mason is celebrating his high school graduation when he receives a mysterious, disturbing letter from his long-lost childhood playmate, Christine. Caleb and his jokester friend Bean decide to travel to his tiny hometown of Hudsonville, Florida, to find her. Upon arrival, they discover the town has taken a horrifying turn for the worse. Caleb's childhood home is abandoned and his father has disappeared. Children are going missing. The old insane asylum has reopened, and Christine is locked inside. Her mother, a witch, is consumed with madness, and Christine's long-dead twin sister whispers clues to Caleb through the static of an a.m. radio. The terrifying prophesies of the spirits are coming to pass. Sixteen clocks are ticking; sixty-six murdered souls will bring about the end of the world. As Caleb peels back layer after layer of mystery, he uncovers a truth more horrible than anything he had imagined, a truth that could only be uttered by the lips of the dead.Warning: This book will give you nightmares! This book is full of suspense at every corner and will have you on the edge of your seat!My Rating: 5 of 5 This book is really great!My Cover Thoughts: The cover is what drew me to read the book. It is a picture of a girl in a white dress standing in a door way. When you look at it you wonder if it is a ghost or something else more sinister.My Thoughts/Review: WOW this book had me on the edge of my bed the entire time I was reading it. It was full of suspense and at times something out of a horror movie!Caleb has just graduated from high school with his best friend Bean and they are celebrating at Caleb's house. Bean is harassing Caleb because he is going to Africa to write about the AIDS epidemic instead of staying home for the summer and surfing and hanging out. Caleb and Bean have been best friends for years and Bean does not want Caleb to go to Africa because he wants to hang out before they go off to college.At the party everyone is having fun and they want Caleb to give a speech but he says no way let's eat cake. While he is getting a second piece of cake he wanders over to the table where the gifts are. He sees a lot of envelops and gifts and while he is trying to balance his second piece of cake he drops it right on the envelope. He is trying to clean it off so his mother won't get mad and that is when he sees then envelope does not have a return address but it is addressed to him by his full name. He is curious so he cleans it off and opens it up. Once he opens the letter all his nightmares that he has had as a child come flashing back to him. He shows the letter to Bean and asks for his opinion. It is decided he will not be going to Africa but to his childhood home to see his best friend from childhood.Once they get there they find that the town that Caleb grew up in is no longer how it was. There are children missing and people missing and no one in the town seems to care. That is when Caleb and Bean go to see his best friend Christine and find out that kids go missing all the time and that they are locked up in this place and no one helps them get out. Caleb swears to Christine he is going to get her out of that place and help her because he owes her that. The only thing that Caleb does not realize is that he is in for a serious journey when he tries to free Christine. Will they make out of alive or will they die trying?This story has lots of twists and turns and will have you at the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next. J. Gabriel Gates is the next Stephen King with this book!Advice: CREEPTASTIC READ! You will not be disappointed once you start reading this book you will not be able to put it down.--Taneesha Freidus Rodriguez (Taneesha Freidus Rodriguezgoodreads.com)It's rare you come across a YA book that can deftly manage the horror genre.  Most attempts I've seen either go so far into gruesome details that they stretch into adult territory or they are so juvenile that no teen would want to read them.  In this grey area – in between Goosebumps and Stephen King – there is an entire window of opportunity for YA authors but until Sleepwalkers, I've never seen it done.  The characters balance each other perfectly with serious and comedic moments, the author gracefully balances suspense and horror with moments to sit back and take a breath to even your heart rate.  This is a wonderfully done book and, honestly, fills such a hole for our library.  I'll be recommending this left and right to the teen boys (and the girls who prefer this type of novel) as it really is the only book of its type in this genre worth recommending. --Linda Green(Linda GreenGoodreads)Creepy, suspenseful, with a Stephen King like quality, J. Gabriel Gates' "The Sleepwalkers" will keep you up all night, so enthralled you have to reach the end and too frightened to close your eyes and sleep. Utterly brilliant.--Skyla Hannah(Skyla Hannahblogspot.com)Suspense Magazine (October 2011 Issue):(check out the magazine! http://www.suspensemagazine.com)'The Sleepwalkers' by J. Gabriel Gates:For high school graduate Caleb Mason, life couldn't be better. He has the perfect girlfriend, college is waiting for him in the fall and he's leaving in a few weeks to spend the summer in Africa, writing about the Aids epidemic as a young journalist. But on the night of his graduation party, Caleb receives a strange letter from an old childhood friend, Christine, which prompts him to change his entire summer's plans.Caleb and his best friend, Bean, take a road trip to Caleb's childhood home in Florida to see what Christine's letter truly meant. When they arrive, they find that things are not what they used to be. Caleb's father has gone missing and hundreds of people have disappeared, and somehow it all centers on an old asylum that's been reopened. As Caleb and Bean embark on a bone-chilling search for the truth, they uncover a conspiracy that could involve the end of the world.I was extremely impressed with how vivid Gates' descriptions were. Every time I closed my eyes, I could easily see ghostly figures in white approaching—eyes tightly closed as though they were dreaming—or their demonic faces when they captured their prey. Gates begins this YA novel with a sense of foreboding that carries through the rest of the story and leaves you on the edge of your seat the entire way. 'The Sleepwalkers' is the perfect horror story to tell around a campfire or read on a stormy night—as long as you don't forget to leave the lamp or flashlight on when you go to sleep.Review by Melissa Dalton forSuspense Magazine(Melissa DaltonSuspense Magazine)"Overall, this is one of the most chilling books i've ever read. With a writing style that reads like a poem and characters that are so fleshed out i cried with them and screamed with them and felt anxiety with, THE SLEEPWALKERS is sure to be a fresh book on the YA shelves!"--HDRead the full reveiw at: http://www.readingwritingbreathing.com/2011/08/sleepwalkers-by-j-gabriel-gates.html. (HDwww.readingwritingbreathing.com)"In short, I enjoyed reading this book as it was a step away from the usual YA fiction. I would recommend this for readers aged 15+ years who are looking for something more akin to classic horror tales. You won't be disappointed!"--SallyRead the full reveiw at:http://themidnightreaders.blogspot.com/2011/08/review-sleepwalkers-j-gabriel-gates.html. (Sallywww.themidnightreaders.com)"Im not one for mystery books or even scary books... but this book seriously hooked me from the very first page. It wasnt to scary, thank goodness, or I would be having nightmares just like the main character Caleb-also known as Billy. The book is about Caleb going to Florida to see a childhood friend Christine. When he finds her, he pretty much checks her off as crazy-that is until things start happening to make him reconsider her level of crazy. And the big questions is: Is Caleb bringing about the end of the world? And if so, can he stop it? Talk about not seeing that plot line coming. This books is perfect, amazing, wonderful. Get it, and read it!!!" --Felicia Warren(Felicia WarrenGoodreads.com)Class valedictorian Caleb's future seems pretty well mapped out, until he receives an unsettling letter from a childhood friend—now in an asylum—who pleads with him to come save her. On a hunch, he jets from Malibu to his birth home of Hudsonville, Florida, where he discovers a sinister psychiatric institution called the Dream Center, an unholy nexus from which spring an army of 'sleepwalkers'—possessed children and teens who seem to be doing the bidding of ghostly masters. Gates attacks this horror thriller with admirable vigor and a strong sense of style that, while not always applied consistently, makes this a work of notable ambition. There is so much going on that supernatural particulars—and there are a lot of them—get lost in the shuffle. But when Gates strikes upon a good character, he strikes hard, as with Ron Bent, a hook-handed Vietnam vet and ex-pastor; and an especially creepy villain who is part serial killer, part mystic, part rodeo clown. Could have been tighter, but at least there's plenty to sink your teeth into.— Daniel Kraus (Daniel KrausBooklist)". . . I started to really enjoy this book from the first chapter Caleb is a interesting character with a past that haunts him. Bean says some of the funniest stuff but you can see that there is another side to him with both Caleb and bean together it makes a great team for this story.I found this book to unfold like a big puzzle with each chapter you get a new piece of the puzzle. It's exciting and at times scary there was some really weird and chilling stuff going on in this town and I found myself glued to the book needing to know what secrets were held within the pages.All together this book was well written and the story itself was one of a kind different exciting and scary.  I would recommend this book to others and would happily reread this book.A book that leaves a ticking in your ears and a chill down your spin.5/5My favourite quote 'Dude, she's like the queen from Alice in Wonderland. Every time she comes around, my balls shrink up like they're trying to hide'"--Annmarie Ager(Annmarie AgerNetGalley)"I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.Caleb Mason is graduating from high school, is one of most popular kids in his school, is dating Amber, also in the popular club, and is best friends with Bean, who is a likable jokester who complements Caleb perfectly. Caleb is taking a year off school, where he is planning to study journalism and become an investigative reporter, to go to Africa and work in the Aids community. At his graduation party, though, all that changes when he gets a very cryptic letter from a childhood friend back in Hudsonville, Florida, the little backwater community he lived in until he was 8. He has a bad feeling about this, so he takes Bean and heads back there to make sure Christine is okay. That is when life as he knows it changes completely, and he finds himself embroiled in discovering the truth to a terrible, deadly secret that the town is hiding.I loved this book! It was delightfully creepy and suspenseful, and once you start it, trust me, you will not want to put it down until you reach the very last page! The writing is superb, the characters are very well fleshed out and three dimensional, and the big secret is a doozy indeed. This is a YA book, and as such there are only a few quick mentions of sex, basically in passing, and the cursing is kept to a minimum. There was nothing that I found offensive at all.You really find yourself pulling for the characters, but you know that there is not going to be a happy ending for some of them, which is another thing that keeps the suspense level up.In summary, I am giving this book 5 out of 5 stars because I loved everything about it, and I don't say that often!! As soon as this book is released, Get It!!!"--Julie(Julie WittNetGalley)"The sleepwalkers is an eerie, creepy tale filled with mystery and some very horrific characters and images. While it was definitely a page turner, I did have some issues with this book. The most predominant being that the beginning read more like a movie script than an actual novel. And, because of this, I really had a hard-time fully connecting with these characters in the beginning. I did feel a change a quarter of the way in though, and really started to get into the story.Although Caleb was the main character, his best friend Bean really stole the scenes. Bean is this funny, snarky, often crude but deep down great guy. He is full of personality and just fun to read. They really are a great team, but on his own Caleb could have used a little more personality.The relationship between Caleb and Christine was perfect, however. All to often in YA fiction you have these characters that fall madly in love within the first few pages and it is so unbelievable and quite frankly insulting. This relationship however, is very real and very natural. There could be some argument that the relationship is not believable due to the length of time these two were apart, but I disagree. I for one have had childhood friends who I have been estranged from over the years, who I have reconnected with and it felt as though we had never been apart. These are true connections - the ones that really matter. This is what Caleb and Christine have and I loved that.I really feel that this book could easily be adapted to film and do very well. It is a very visual book. In the end, although the ending was somewhat predictable and slightly anti-climatic, I would recommend it. If you are looking for a creepy, bone chilling, page turner? You will find it within the pages of The Sleepwalkers. I am interested to see where the author, J Gabriel Gates, goes from here."--Tracy H.(Tracy H.NetGalley)OK, I usually don't get too excited over books. I like some, I love some, I even hate some, but I usually don't get excited about them, so I was surprised that this YA book has done just that! I am usually a romance/thriller book junkie those have been my favorite forever.. until now! I am offically a YA fan.In "The Sleepwalkers", J. Gabriel Gates spins a thrilling tale that is made for YA's. Why didn't I know about this author sooner? I guess it's because I just assumed that YA books were dull and filled with immature, little kid things. I know, that makes me sound old and sad. J. Gabriel Gates is a terrific writer and is better then I could have hoped for. I didn't need blood, guts, gore or anything of the sort for this book to grab my attention. What I needed, and this book provided so well, was its ability to make me feel like I was part of the story. The characters were believable and acted as I would have in the same given situations. "The Sleepwalkers" was riveting and had me hooked from page one. J. Gabriel Gates is now an author I will be looking for more from. "The Sleepwalkers" takes its readers through the thrilling tale of Caleb and his best friend Bean. They have just graduated High School and are deciding their future when Caleb receives a letter from an old friend letting him know that she hasn't forgotten what happened in their youth and needs his help. Caleb puts his plans on hold and takes Bean to Florida where he grew up and a dreadful thing happened. They try to uncover what is going on and why Caleb's father has disappeared. Along the way, they find out many disturbing things and learn what has happened during all the years Caleb has been gone. This book is well written and a real page turner, even if you happen to be, like me, much older than the normal YA book demographic. You will love this thrilling tale.I give "The Sleepwalkers" by J. Gabriel Gates 5 of 5 stars.--sweepingme.com(sweepingme.comNetGalley)Caleb is celebrating his recent graduation with his best friend Bean when he recieves a letter from a childhood friend who he hasn't seen in many years, asking him for help. When Caleb and Bean arrive in his childhood home in Florida, they find that many members of the community have disappeared, including Caleb's father. At the center of the strange happenings in the town is the Dream Center, an establishment where people get admitted, but never come out.I was given the great opportunity to read this book through Netgalley, and I'm really glad I did. This book, to be blunt, totally kicked ass! It was an absolutely perfect blend of being terrifying and intense. The characters all felt very real to me and I had my breath held for so long while I was reading, just hoping everything would turn out alright for them in the end. There were many twists and turns while helped move the story along, and the writing was so descriptive and downright scary.And the ending was just...chilling. That's all I will say here, because I don't want to give too much away! I really enjoyed reading this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a thrilling scary story.--Rebecca Foulks(Rebecca FoulksNetGalley)The story starts of with a dream. From the past or just a random dream? That was my question. It was disturbing and made me wonder what kind of Sleepwalker am I going to encounter? It is obviously not the normal kind.Beware that there are words / scenes rarely written in YA. If you are a YA reader, this might come to you as darker than usual and bolder, braver. That being said and as an adult reader I love the Sleepwalkers. It is already creepy enough that Caleb's childhood friend Christine, who he hasn't talked to in ages since he left Hudsonville suddenly wrote him a letter with a mysterious message. Going there with his best friend Bean to venture the unknown, I think it is fair to expect creepier scenarios. Then mix it up with an adult named Ron who seem to came out of nowhere but is heading to the same direction as Caleb and Bean and to top all of that there seem to be a deranged doctor/directro in the Dream Center named, Barnett DeFranklin, who seems to know what is happening this is creepy small town; the plot thickens.Sleepwalker took me to a world where no YA has taken me before, scary enough to render an 7/10 horror scale in my book. My nerves were rattled, I kept wondering what the hell is going on? Too much psychological play. Dreams, hallucinations, satanic rituals, kids with pale faces in dark tunnels, and more. Is is a super natural element or images from a deranged mind of the characters? If you do not mind getting confused and love challenging yourself to find out what really is happening in this book, this one is perfect for you.--Pat Ortin(Pat OrtinNetGalley)