Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham

I enjoyed this book, even though the beginning was a tad slow for me. There were certainly some surprises along the way, however. At times I was suspicious of various characters - and some I had a right to be as evidenced by the ending - but I still enjoyed how the story unfolded.

The protagonist is Claire Campbell, a journalist whose older sister, Natalie, disappeared 22 years previously at the age of 18. Claire is estranged from her parents, especially her mother, and keeps herself closed off from her friends. She doesn't get the promotion she was expecting, so she quits her job. Then, her dad calls her and asks her to go visit her mother, who fell and was injured. She hasn't been home since she left after high school. Claire is not in a good place, to put it simply.

Since she is unemployed, she decides to go home. Her arrival to her mother's home (her childhood home) doesn't inspire any warm & fuzzy feelings. She overhears her mother complaining to her father about Claire's visit. Her parents have been divorced since Natalie's disappearance, but her dad still keeps tabs on her mother. (Still loves her, actually.) Claire decides to leave after one night. She ends up getting a seasonal job at a vineyard called Galloway Farms, which is a place that Natalie had briefly worked the summer she disappeared. It's hard labor, but the job provides a place to live, food, and a wage. Claire figures it will buy her some time before she crawls back to her former employer and asks for her job back.

Claire finds a journal hidden in her cabin almost immediately. It's the diary written by Marcia Galloway, the wife of the man (Mitchell) that owns Galloway Farms. She starts to read it and the knowledge she gains about her employers leads her down a dangerous path. She becomes suspicious of Mitchell Galloway, especially after she starts connecting the dots between him, his wife Marcia, who was reported missing when she was a teenager, other missing girls, and her sister Natalie. Claire's journalistic nature kicks into high gear, which puts her life in danger. Things do get a bit tense at this point. I read the last 75 pages at a fast pace!

Wendy's Rating: ****