Sleeping Beauties characters

Also known as Eve Black

Appears from the start

A mysterious woman who appears near a meth lab as the Aurora sleeping sickness begins. She is preternaturally calm, startlingly violent toward the men at the site and seemingly connected to the strange changes overtaking women and animals.

First appears in chapter 2

The psychiatrist at Dooling Correctional Facility and husband of the county sheriff. Clint is accustomed to listening for the human motives beneath alarming behavior, which makes him reluctant to treat Evie as either a specimen or a monster. His marriage to Lila is strained, but he remains devoted to her and their son Jared.

First appears in chapter 3

Sheriff of Dooling County, wife of Clint and mother of Jared. Lila is a capable investigator already carrying doubts about her marriage when Aurora begins. She tries to keep the county functioning while fighting the exhaustion that will place her inside a cocoon like every other sleeping woman.

First appears in chapter 4

Clint and Lila's teenage son. Jared watches the adults around him lose control as Aurora spreads and must decide how to protect people without surrendering to the fear dividing Dooling's men.

First appears in chapter 5

Dooling's animal-control officer and a separated father with a fierce temper. Frank wants to protect his young daughter and is quick to turn fear into decisive action.

First appears in chapter 8

Frank Geary's estranged wife and the mother of their daughter. Elaine knows both Frank's devotion and the danger of his anger, and the approach of sleep forces her to entrust their child to him during a crisis neither parent understands.

First appears in chapter 6

The warden of Dooling Correctional Facility. Janice has to manage an institution full of frightened staff and inmates as every woman faces enforced sleep and the prison's remaining men disagree over Evie.

First appears in chapter 2

An inmate at Dooling Correctional Facility whose life has been shaped by addiction and violence. Jeanette is among the imprisoned women confronting Aurora without the freedom to choose where or with whom they will fall asleep.

First appears in chapter 14

A television reporter who reaches Dooling while Aurora is becoming a global emergency. Michaela recognizes that Evie's immunity may be the center of the story and keeps recording as the prison becomes the focus of increasingly dangerous attention.

First appears in chapter 9

A correctional officer at Dooling whose resentment of women becomes more dangerous as female authority disappears. Don remains at the prison during the emergency and sees Aurora as permission to exercise power he was previously denied.

First appears in chapter 7

Lila's chief deputy. Terry helps carry the burden of county law enforcement while his sheriff investigates the first local violence connected to Aurora and struggles to stay awake.