Forget Me Not
A Novel
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- USD 14.99
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- USD 14.99
Publisher Description
A pulse-pounding new Southern thriller from the author of the runaway bestseller A Flicker in the Dark.
Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.
With the entire summer now looming ahead—a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother—Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in that last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary's contents… as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister's disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.
Galloway was supposed to be a place to help her move forward, but instead, Claire quickly finds herself immersed in her own dark and dangerous past.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Reconnecting with her sister’s memory draws a journalist back into the mystery of how she disappeared in this twisty, atmospheric mystery from Stacy Willingham. It’s been 22 years since Claire’s sister Natalie vanished just after turning 18. Now, returning to her South Carolina hometown and tired of chasing freelance assignments, Claire takes a summer job at the vineyard where Natalie once worked. But her healing journey takes an abrupt turn when she makes an ominous, 22-year-old discovery. Willingham’s prose conjures a palpable feeling of apprehension and dread, as the idyllic barrier island setting begins to feel dark, isolating, and oppressive. Claire can’t stop following her investigative instincts, especially as she starts to uncover shocking revelations about Natalie—but terrifyingly, they may lead her to the same fate. By the second half of this captivating read, the slow burn blazes into a firestorm of unputdownable excitement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Willingham's suffocating latest Southern thriller (after Only If You're Lucky) thrusts disillusioned New York City journalist Claire Campbell back into the rural South Carolina environs she'd hoped to flee forever. When Claire's father calls to tell her that her mother has been in an accident, she reluctantly returns to her hometown of Claxton, S.C., having just quit her job and tired of her latest friend-with-benefits. Still grieving her older sister Natalie's disappearance 22 years earlier, Claire can't bear to stay at home, so she takes lodging on a spooky nearby island and finds a job picking grapes for elderly local Mitchell and his spacey wife, Marcia. Finding Marcia's teenage diary ignites Claire's curiosity about her new employers, and soon, she's mired in Dixie-fiction clichés, dealing with copperheads and cups of suspicious tea as she notices that Marcia's youthful obsession with an older man mirrors the long-missing Natalie's. Willingham tries to enliven the flat proceedings with gothic accouterments and long-festering family secrets, but none of it takes. The result is a pedestrian tale of angst and obsession that will leave overheated readers yearning for a blast of convincing realism.