Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review. Traveling With T also purchased this book via Audible.

Forget Me Not

Summary: 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.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

After really enjoying Stacy’s first 2 books and then being very meh about her third book, I was eager to give Forget Me Not a try.

I was approved for it via Netgalley and was having a hard time getting into it on my Kindle, so I decided to listen to it via Audible because Karissa Vacker was one of the narrators.

I finished this book, but sometimes was verging on “hate listening” because it was slooooooow and Claire, to be an investigative journalist, seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake about some of the things happening at Galloway Farm.

What I liked:

This cover. The colors. The significance.

The diary flashbacks. It really tells a deeper and darker story of how Galloway Farms came to be.

When Claire finally began to act like an investigative reporter.

Bottom line: This book had some good parts, but overall, I’m between 2.5 stars-3 stars. Hoping her 5th book is more like book 1 & 2!

*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*