All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker

All Is Not Forgotten

By Wendy Walker
Published by HQ Stories  (E-book - 12 July 2016; Hardback - 14 July 2016)
ISBN: 978-1785770524

Publisher's description

You can erase the memory. But you cannot erase the crime.

Jenny’s wounds have healed.

An experimental treatment has removed the memory of a horrific and degrading attack.

She is moving on with her life.

That was the plan. Except it’s not working out.

Something has gone. The light in the eyes. And something was left behind. A scar. On her lower back. Which she can’t stop touching.

And she’s getting worse.

Not to mention the fact that her father is obsessed with finding her attacker and her mother is in toxic denial.

It may be that the only way to uncover what’s wrong is to help Jenny recover her memory. But even if it can be done, pulling at the threads of her suppressed experience will unravel much more than the truth about her attack.

My  verdict

All Is Not Forgotten has a fascinating, clever and compelling plot. What if you could forget a particular traumatic time in your life? Something that could have a major impact on you. But while your mind has forgotten, what if your body hasn't? What if somewhere in the back of your mind, the memories remain? What if you then let those memories back to find the perpetrator of the crime?

But what if it's not you this has happened to - what if it's your child? Would you let them take the pill that will make them forget their past? And then would you be prepared to let them remember it all over again?

The novel is narrated by a psychiatrist who is involved with Jenny and her family, trying to help them put their lives back together. It's a slow burner but the pace and tension gradually build up. It's clear that Jenny's rape has a major impact on her whole family. And, as expected, they are all struggling to cope with the aftermath.

All Is Not Forgotten is horrifying in the way it gets right inside your mind. I loved the psychology and science background, focusing on memories and the imprint they leave behind.  This is a shocking and highly thought-provoking read, and I sat thinking about it for some time after I finished the final page, with my head buzzing.

I received an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Click here for a guest post by Wendy Walker about her journey to publication.

Follow the Blog Tour, starting on 14 July 2016

Journey to Publication by Wendy Walker, author of All Is Not Forgotten

I'm delighted to welcome Wendy Walker to my blog today to talk about her journey to publication. All Is Not Forgotten is being published by HQ Stories next week. 

Journey to Publication

By Wendy Walker

After I had my first son eighteen years ago, I decided to stay home to raise my children until they were all in school. I felt lucky to be able to do that and so I took the job very seriously! But after about a year, I started to feel unfulfilled so I started to write whenever I had free time (which was not very often!). I had two more children in five years and all the while I kept writing. I even wrote in the back of my minivan while waiting for them at pre-school! I felt like a time scavenger, especially after I found an agent who thought she could sell my work. Of course, life is never that straight forward! It was a long road and 17 years getting to the writing and publication of All Is Not Forgotten. During that time, I published other novels, edited, and eventually went back to work as a lawyer (after 14 years away from the field). The work I found was in the area of family law and it was a wonderful fit for my life experience. I practiced for five years, eventually opening up my own practice, which focuses on consulting.

My first two published novels were called Four Wives (2008) and Social Lives (2009). These books involved stories of women in wealthy suburbs struggling with their identities, marriages, children, and former lives. I have lived in suburban Connecticut most of my life, both as a child and a grown woman, and I find it fascinating! Here, many women quit their highly skilled jobs to take care of homes and families while their husbands work long hours and travel for jobs in finance. This always made me think about Betty Friedan and her seminal work, The Feminine Mystique. I built my plots around these themes of economic dependency and the division of labor within families where both partners are highly skilled and educated.

After I started practicing law again, I never gave up the dream of making a career as a writer. I used to tell my boys that it was important to always have a dream, but to also be responsible. I did not stop working as a lawyer. But I also managed to keep writing! I signed with a new agent and she loved the concept of a psychological thriller based on memory science, an idea I came up with nearly five years earlier but never got around to writing. I was a bit nervous about writing in a new genre, but I had always enjoyed reading suspense and thrillers and I was very interested in this story concept. So I dusted it off and wrote All Is Not Forgotten.  It was great advice and I am so glad that my children may get to see my dream come true (fingers crossed) so that they will believe what I told them about having dreams and never giving up – even if you have to keep your day job!

I am currently writing almost full time- but my doors are open and I still have a few clients. I just finished a draft of a new psychological thriller and am working on revisions.

About Wendy Walker

Wendy Walker has worked as an attorney specializing in family law. She lives in Connecticut where she is at work on her next novel.

Visit Wendy's website to learn more or follow her on Twitter.

Follow @HQStories and #NotForgotten on Twitter.

All Is Not Forgotten
By Wendy Walker
Published by HQ Stories  (E-book - 12 July 2016; Hardback - 14 July 2016)
ISBN: 978-1785770524

Publisher's description

You can erase the memory. But you cannot erase the crime.

Jenny’s wounds have healed.

An experimental treatment has removed the memory of a horrific and degrading attack.

She is moving on with her life.

That was the plan. Except it’s not working out.

Something has gone. The light in the eyes. And something was left behind. A scar. On her lower back. Which she can’t stop touching.

And she’s getting worse.

Not to mention the fact that her father is obsessed with finding her attacker and her mother is in toxic denial.

It may be that the only way to uncover what’s wrong is to help Jenny recover her memory. But even if it can be done, pulling at the threads of her suppressed experience will unravel much more than the truth about her attack.

And that could destroy as much as it heals.

Click here to read my review.

Follow the Blog Tour, starting on 14 July 2016

Blackout by Ragnar Jónasson

Blackout
By Ragnar Jónasson
Published by Orenda Books (Kindle - 30 June 2016; Paperback - 15 July 2016)
ISBN: 978-1910633465

Publisher's description
On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer's night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person's life hangs in the balance. Ari Thor Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjordur struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit. What secrets does the dead man harbour, and what is the young reporter hiding? As silent, unspoken horrors from the past threaten them all, and the darkness deepens, it’s a race against time to find the killer before someone else dies...

My verdict
I'm a huge fan of Ragnar Jónasson's Dark Iceland series. And there's no doubt that Blackout is his darkest book yet. This is actually set between the two previous books - Snowblind and Nightblind - and shows that the author is an incredibly versatile writer. All of the Dark Iceland novels read like old-fashioned whodunnits set in modern times. But they're certainly NOT formulaic, as each book has given me a completely different reading experience.

While reading Blackout, I felt like I was among old friends, with the book's familiar characters and location. Siglufjordur, where the series is set, is a small close-knit and somewhat claustrophobic community, where everyone knows one another and many of the locals are related. Blackout is set in 2010, right in the middle of the volcanic ash cloud disruption to European air space. This provides an even darker setting than usual and gives the author plenty of scope to write his stunning, vivid and very atmospheric descriptions of the Icelandic landscape.

Local policeman Ari Thor and his colleagues are investigating a brutal murder that took place on the shores of a fjord. Ari Thor takes less of a major role in this book, as a young reporter is conducting her own investigations into the identity of the killer. He's distracted by problems at work and those on the domestic front, fighting his own demons and making some highly rash decisions that he could regret later on.

The plot of Blackout is far more complex than that of the previous Dark Iceland books, with various different strands that at first seemed unrelated. The suspense and intrigue built up gradually with many surprises along the way. And as the jigsaw pieces slotted into place, there were several breath-holding final chapters.

I couldn't wait to read Blackout, so bought it soon after the ebook release. The only drawback now is that I have to wait until Spring 2017 to read the next book, Rupture. Looks like I may have to read all three of the current books again to tide me over until then.

Gone Astray by Michelle Davies

Gone Astray
By Michelle Davies
Published by Macmillan (24 March 2016)
ISBN: 978-1447284178

Publisher's description

Lesley and her husband Mack are the sudden winners of a £15 million EuroMillions jackpot. They move with their 15-year-old daughter Rosie to an exclusive gated estate in Buckinghamshire, leaving behind their ordinary lives - and friends - as they are catapulted into wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

But it soon turns into their darkest nightmare when, one beautiful spring afternoon, Lesley returns to their house to find it empty: their daughter Rosie is gone.

DC Maggie Neville is assigned to be Family Liaison Officer to Lesley and Mack, supporting them while quietly trying to investigate the family. And she has a crisis threatening her own life - a secret from the past that could shatter everything she's worked so hard to build.

As Lesley and Maggie desperately try to find Rosie, their fates hurtle together on a collision course that threatens to end in tragedy . . .

Money can't buy you happiness.

The truth could hurt more than a lie.

One moment really can change your life forever.

My verdict
Gone Astray is a well-written cross between a police procedural and psychological thriller.

It follows a family whose lives changed drastically when they won millions of pounds and they start drifting apart. Money really doesn't buy happiness and isn't the answer to many of life's problems - and this is the main theme of the plot. When teenage daughter Rosie goes missing, family secrets and lies bubble to the surface.

Gone Astray is tightly plotted, and there were several twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end. I read most of the book in one sitting - it's fast paced, compelling and easy to read. The characters are believable and I enjoyed reading the investigation from the point of view of a Family Liaison Officer - providing an insight into their work.

This is the first in the DC Maggie Neville series - I really warmed to her as a character and look forward to seeing what's next in store for this troubled Family Liaison Officer. The author's experience as a freelance women's magazine journalist is apparent in her writing - mixing crime and family dynamics very well together to produce a great debut novel.