Sandy M’s review of Everything She Forgot by Lisa Ballantyne
Fiction published by William Morrow Paperbacks 06 Oct 15
As much as I love my romance, every now and again I do like a good mystery. Not necessarily a thriller or true crime, but a really great puzzle with some deep emotion. This is my first book by Lisa Ballantyne, and I just happened upon it. She gave me just what I wanted, and then some.
Margaret Holloway is involved in a horrific accident, the worst in London history. She’s trapped and her car is on fire. About to panic, not sure if she’ll survive, a stranger puts his fist through her window and drags her to safety. Then he’s gone. And everything in Margaret’s world changes. The accident and its aftermath begin to bring on a restlessness in her, along with memories from her childhood – memories even her parents never wanted her to remember and ones she chose to forget.
From a criminal family, Big George doesn’t want to be anything like them. He’s a gentle man who loves his girl. When a pregnancy occurs, George does the right thing by proposing, but her family really doesn’t want to be associated with his family’s shadiness. Though he gets to hold his daughter – Molly – once, mother and daughter move across the country just for the sake of distance. Doesn’t matter, though. George loves his little girl and his hope stays alive that perhaps one day they can all be together as a family. In fact, he moves in that direction years later when he receives an unexpected windfall, but things go all wrong for George and he ends up kidnapping Molly, and their journey together may be headed toward disaster, but father and daughter finally get to know one another. Moll’s mother, Kathleen Henderson, is awash with fear and panic not knowing what’s happened to her little girl, but when it’s brought to her George may be involved, she knows Moll is in good hands.
Small-minded and hypocritical, Angus Campbell believes he has what it takes to be a famous journalist. He just needs that one story. When he discovers the kidnapping, he paws around until he figures out pretty much what happened. So he goes on the road to find George and Molly, and I hoped every mile of the way he would never, ever find them. I haven’t actually hated a character to this degree in a very long time as I hate Angus Campbell. Ms. Ballantyne does her job quite well, giving you characters you want to spend time with and then those you’d rather leave by the wayside.
This story begins in 2013, then flashes back to 1985 and back again numerous times, driving it to its heartbreaking conclusion. George had my heart from the beginning, a daddy only wanting his girls and to be loved. Things never seem to go right for him, and even though they’re on the run, that brief time with Moll is the best of his life. Angus gets too many breaks to take him to his ending, and I wanted to shove his pride and arrogance down his throat. And Margaret. Goodness, so many changes and remembrances come at once when the floodgates finally open. She visits the stranger who saved her while he’s in a coma in the hospital, trying to figure out his story too. All of these characters are charging toward the same conclusion, and though you can figure it out for yourself at a certain point, what truly does happen at the end is so emotional and unexpected.
While I understand why Ms. Ballantyne gave us the ending she did, I wanted more for these characters. Which is more for me, of course, as the reader. I wanted the hole in my heart mended and repaired too, but I still ache for them to this very day. I highly recommend this book. Don’t pass it by.
Grade: B
Summary:
Some things aren’t meant to be remembered . . .
They’re calling it the worst pileup in London history. Margaret Holloway is driving home, but her mind is elsewhere—on a troubled student, her daughter’s acting class, the next day’s meeting—when she’s rear-ended and trapped in the wreckage. Just as she begins to panic, a disfigured stranger pulls her from the car seconds before it’s engulfed in flames. Then he simply disappears.
Though she escapes with minor injuries, Margaret feels that something’s wrong. She’s having trouble concentrating. Her emotions are running wild. More than that, flashbacks to the crash are also dredging up lost associations from her childhood, fragments of events that had been wiped from her memory. Whatever happened, she didn’t merely forget—she chose to forget. And somehow, Margaret knows deep down that it has something to do with the man who saved her life.
As Margaret uncovers a mystery with chilling implications for her family and her very identity, Everything She Forgot winds through a riveting dual narrative and asks the question: How far would you go to hide the truth—from yourself?
No excerpt available.
