Published By: Manilla Press
Pages: 352
Released On: 06/03/2025
If the one thing you can trust is your memory, what happens when you forget?
A young woman, Jane O, arrives in a psychiatrist’s office. She’s been suffering a series of worrying episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations and an inexplicable sense of dread. But as the psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening in Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. When she is found a day later, unconscious in a park, she has no memory of what has happened to her.
Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms will lead her psychiatrist to question everything he once thought he knew . . .
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Manilla Press for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This is my first Karen Thompson Walker book, but after reading it I will definitely be looking for her other books.
I initially thought this would be like Matthew Blake’s Anna O, but apart from the addition of an “O” by her name, it was completely different.
A personal note here. At about 5% of the way through, there is a mention of Functional Neurological Disorder, which is the condition I have. It’s barely known in the medical field let alone outside of it. And so to see it mentioned in a mainstream novel gave me great pleasure, which I think you’ll only understand if you’ve gone through the same thing.
It is narrated mostly by the psychiatrist that treated her, but on a couple of occasions we get to read Jane’s journal, which gives us two different perspectives of what’s going on which I think was more interesting than if it had just been straight narrative from a third person’s perspective.
Is Karen knowledgeable in the ways of the brain or of psychiatry? Because she’s gone into so much detail that it’s hard to believe it’s all from research, it all sounds so detailed and real, with such understanding.
It didn’t have that real fast-paced, breathless, edge-of-your-seat thrill that I was initially expecting, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s so cleverly written, you still get that thrill but it’s softer, more contained. It’s the very definition of a psychological thriller.
Because of how gentle it is and how clever it is, I wasn’t expecting so many twists and turns which was a nice surprise. There was so much I didn’t see coming and yet in hindsight it fits so well. I kept thinking I’d cracked it and then something would happen to turn it on it’s head, but there was no way I saw the conclusion coming.
It only really has two characters. Yes there are background characters and side characters, but really we only have Jane, and her psychiatrist Dr Byrd. Which is a risky thing to do because, if for whatever reason you don’t like one of them, you haven’t really got any other options. It can also feel boring and repetitive if you’re only reading the two names but I think it would be a detriment to have more people. It’s a busy enough story as it is without having to remember who Tom, Dick or Harry are. It also adds to this sense of secrecy and the unknown
It’s really moving. Most thrillers aren’t, they’re scary and tense. This had so much heart in it that I couldn’t help but be taken in by Jane and Dr Byrd.
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