The Eleventh Floor by Kylie Orr

Publisher's Synopsis

Will one mother's lie cost another woman her life?

Sleep deprived, struggling and at breaking point, first-time mum Gracie Michaels books one night - alone - at The Maxwell Hotel. A king-size bed all to herself. No demands. With time to recharge she'll be able to return to her family more like the unflappable mother she pretends to be.

Instead, she wakes in a room she doesn't recognise after an encounter with a man who is not her husband. Then she sees something she wishes she hadn't.

Being drawn into a crime was not something Gracie had planned for her hotel stay but when a distraught family appeals for information and a police investigation heats up she is trapped in a maze of lies.

To speak out jeopardises her marriage, but her silence threatens her son, her sanity and her safety. Will Gracie destroy her own family by telling the truth or devastate someone else's by keeping her secrets?

My Review of The Eleventh Floor by Kylie Orr

The Eleventh Floor is a dark domestic drama novel that starts out by shining a light on the mental stress experienced by new mothers. But then things are taken to a whole new level with a horrible sexual assault creating a nightmare world for a young family. 

When Gracie Michaels admits she’s finding it difficult to cope with a baby who seems never to sleep, screaming day and night, she starts dreaming of taking a single night’s break. Her husband’s fully on board and books her a room in a luxury hotel so she can relax, recharge and get a good night’s sleep.

She’s a little perturbed upon checking in when she discovers the hotel is hosting a national conference for salesmen and the place is simply crawling with businessmen and women. Nevertheless, she’s determined to have her quiet night, getting in some indulgent shopping first before kicking back and relaxing.

On her way down to the lobby, she bumps into a man, one of the conference attendees, who somehow talks her into dropping into the hotel’s bar that night for a chance to let her hair down. Against her better judgement, she decides this would be a good chance to feel normal again and winds up dressing herself up and going out for the night.

The nightmare begins when she wakes up at around 3am in the man’s bedroom on the 11th floor of the hotel. Looking out the window in confusion she appears to witness a man assaulting a woman on the street below. Not only that but she’s having flashback memories of what must have happened to her in the previous few hours.

She’s distraught, ashamed and disgusted with herself and can’t bear to discuss the sexual assault she was victim to. Her silence, however, is going to prove to have devastating consequences, both with her marriage and legally when the police come knocking asking questions about the assault that took place outside the hotel.

It’s at this point that I thought I knew the direction in which the story was heading. A devastating assault, witnessing another horrible crime and recriminations over a night to forget. But this wasn’t a thriller where danger was to lie around every corner. Instead the story turns into one of redemption, empowerment and strength as Gracie decides to fight back against her abuser, something that all too frequently ends up putting the victim through an even greater trauma.

Gracie is perfectly depicted as the victim who feels fear, confusion and even guilt following a sexual assault where she was drugged first. Her pain and denial that quickly becomes self-loathing is understandable and has been graphically captured by Kylie Orr through the judicious use of the first person narrative. The only source of annoyance I had came from Gracie’s almost chronic need to lie - to her husband, to the police, to her best friend. And most times there was no good reason to lie, a choice that caused inevitable major problems.

The Eleventh Floor highlights the difficulties women who are victims of sexual abuse have when dealing with the legal system. As was pointed out a number of times in the course of the fight, justice has no place in the legal process so Gracie’s fight for justice was always going to be a difficult one.

I thought this was an important story and it was well told. It wasn’t quite the thriller I was expecting, but that’s okay because the dogged fight through the various legal channels created its own type of suspense that was gripping in itself.