Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Emma Lewis is on top of her game. She’s working in London, helping her patients at a busy hospital, when the phone call comes. A man has been found on a beach in Norfolk. He had no identification, no phone, no memory, no name. And when Dr. Lewis’ mentor calls her to see if she could help, she jumps at the chance. After all, she wrote a paper where she asserted that patients with fugue, like this man has, is often misdiagnosed. This is her chance to undo the mistakes of her peers. This is her chance to prove she’s right.

But it means going back to Norfolk. Where it happened. It’s been 14 years, and she’d changed her name and how she looks, but still. If anyone figured out who she really is, she would have to change her name again, move away again, start all over again. Is this case worth the risk?

Emma decides that it is. The rarity of a true fugue patient, not someone who is lying and faking, is the kind of thing that comes along once in a career, if you’re really, really lucky. She has to do it. It’s the only way to prove her her theory is correct. So she goes to Norfolk, back to where it happened, to meet Mr. Nobody.

An incident at the hospital where Mr. Nobody is under the care of a nurse he’s found an unspoken connection with, unspoken because he’s not talking yet, and he gets the name Matthew. A series of tests concludes that he has no physical damage causing the memory loss or the muteness. Dr. Lewis knows it must have been from psychological trauma. With that in mind, she tries to connect with Matthew, and to connect him to his memories.

But then someone connects Emma to her past. And all her hard work, not just with Matthew but with her own life, threatens to come tumbling down. Emma has to decide if helping Matthew, if all her life’s work, is worth the threat on her life. When push comes to shove, what’s a neuropsychiatrist to do?

Catherine Steadman took the book world by storm last year with her debut novel Something in the Water. Now she’s back with her second thriller, Mr. Nobody, and it’s even better than her first. Mr. Nobody is a page-turner with lots of psychology and danger and characters you want to keep rooting for, even when they tell you not to. Don’t miss this one. It’s so amazingly good!

Galleys for Mr. Nobody were provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Steadman is so great at creating characters that you can't put down. Mr. Nobody is filled with mystery but in a way that doesn't leave you confused. It leaves you with a desire to read more and to finish it as quickly as possible to figure it out. It's an incredible novel and one that won't disappoint.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read Mr. Nobody by Catherine Steadman. Steadman's novel takes the reader on a journey into the mind of a man who has no identiy. Emma Lewis is a doctor who specializes in studying the minds of people with a variety of malformations.
A man awakens on a beach - he has no identification on him and does not speak. He may be a great test case and Emma is called upon to find out what is wrong with the mysterious man. But Emma brings her own baggage to the case and she has a past that is just as mysterious as this unknown man.
Emma's past comes to the surface as she tries to help this memorizing man - and soon she finds that maybe meeting this man, treating his illness, and working with him has an elusive feeling and this is not a coincidence.
Good book - 3 stars.

Happy pub day to Mr. Nobody! Thank you @netgalley for the ARC. I loved this book and flew through it. Finally a thriller that does memory loss well. Will be recommending.

I so wanted to love this book but sadly it wasn’t meant to be, I liked the first part but the ending was so unbelievable I just kept shaking my head, I loved this authors first book and will definitely look for her next one. Thanks to netgalley and publisher for this arc in exchange of an honest review.

I was excited for the opportunity to read this book since I loved the author's book Something in the Water so much. Sadly, I didn't really enjoy this one - it was painfully slow for me and I struggled to finish it.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and Catherine Steadman for the opportunity to read and review her sophomore book - I really enjoyed her first, Something in the Water, and this one was a good follow up.

A man is found on a beach with a head injury, no shoes and no knowledge of his name or background. He is taken to the hospital where a connection with a nurse is the only way to calm him down. He's originally called Mr Nobody but the nurse renames him Matthew. A neuropsychiatrist, Dr Emma Lewis, is asked to consult on the case - running tests and evaluating him to see if he is lying or is a rare fugue case who has completely lost his past memories. However, that requires Dr Lewis to go back to her hometown where she experienced her own trauma. When she meets her patient, he seems to know things about her past that no one else should know. How is this possible?

A good story with lots of interesting facts about memory and brain function too.

Wow. What an amazing story. It engrossed me from the very beginning until the end. It's unputdownable. The twists and turns in the story will have you forgetting everythingelse you have to do. Absolutely pick up this winner of a book. Buckle in for the ride of your life. Happy reading!

Mr Nobody captured my undivided attention from the very beginning.

A man is discovered on a deserted beach near a small English town with no identification and unable to speak. Medical experts are bewildered by his condition and the press begin to call him Mr Nobody. A young neuropsychiatrist, Emma Stone, is retained to assess the patient’s condition and now she must return to the town she left fourteen years ago. As she confronts a past she has tried so hard to erase, Emma begins realize that her patient knows her secret.

Mr Nobody is Catherine Steadman’s second novel and it is a sharp psychological thriller. It is utterly engrossing and well-written, with interesting characters, a unique plot, and an unexpected ending. While, in the end, it might be a bit implausible, it is still a very good read and I highly recommend it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Review of Mr. Nobody by Catherine Steadman

“People have to change themselves” is the last line of this taut thriller.
I liked this book because of the twists and turns but also the psychological aspects of the drama and the issue of identity. Who and/or what determines our identity? What happens when the person we know ourselves to be is taken away from us? These are questions Steadman plays on in this novel. This book reminded me of the Jack Reacher books but in a more mind-game versus physical-game way.
This novel is the story of two people whose identities are not clear to themselves or to the readers until the very end. The story begins as an unidentified man is found on a beach in Norfolk, England. He is alive but doesn’t remember anything about who he is or why he is there. Next, we meet Emma, a psychiatrist who gets a call from a respected colleague to see if she can figure out who this man is. From that point on, we get snippets of Emma’s past parceled out at the same time we are learning about Mr. Nobody, who becomes known as Matthew, and it seems there might be a connection between the two, or is there? There are other characters that go in and out of the story, but the focus really is on the Emma and Matthew and their struggles to come to grips with their past lives and what happens when you can’t put the pieces together versus what happens when you can.
Thank you to Net Galley and Random House/Ballantine for the ARC.

Unfortunately, it's hard to follow, Something in the Water.I think if I hadn't read that I would have liked this more. A man is found washed up with no memory of who he is or how he got there. A Psychiatrist is brought in to assess the situation. She has a past she is hiding and the weird thing is he knows what it is. The ending is a little convoluted.I received an advance copy with no promise for a good review. I did like it.

This was a thriller that provided less thrill than I would have liked. I didn’t find the mystery to be that compelling for some reason. Perhaps the medical terminology slowed it down a bit? While I can suspend belief for the sake of a better story, the more unlikely elements of the novel did little to better the story. I formed no real attachment to these characters. I liked Steadman’s predecessor novel, “Something in the Water” a bit more. Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy for review. I’d rate this as 2/5 stars ⭐️.

I enjoyed this book and it was a quick, fast-paced read. The foreshadowing and turns the story took for the majority of the book held my interest. However, I felt like the payoff/resolution of the various storylines were kind of a let down. For example, the set up of what happened in Dr. Lewis's past was paced very well and had me guessing, but then once we finally find out what happened, I felt like it didn't really fit in with the story anymore. I really struggled whether to give it 3 or 4 stars. It was definitely closer to a 3.5 for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for granting early access to this book. This review is being posted to Goodreads and @thatreadingrealtor on Instagram and Facebook today.

I really wanted to love this book, as I loved Something in the Water. I liked it a lot! Dr. Emma Lewis takes on a patient, Mr. Nobody, a man with no memory. Who is he and does he really have no memory. Why is Emma hiding under a new identity? Told from both Emma's and Mr. Nobody's perspectivekeeps it interesting. My only problem was it took a while to get into. I actually started and finished 2 other books during this one. It does turn out to be worth it though! Give it a chance!

MR. NOBODY, a Psychological Thriller and the first book that I have read by Catherine Steadman, immediately pulled me in and kept me entranced until the big reveal towards the end, which admittedly had me saying, ‘Oh Shit!’, followed by a conclusion that unfortunately left me with a few more questions than answers in regards to clarification of well-placed hints sprinkled along the way.

The tension and build-up throughout MR. NOBODY leading up to the conclusion were, in this reader's opinion, perfect to the point that didn't want to put the book done.

Though MR. NOBODY didn't tick off all the boxes for me, I look forward to reading Steadman’s Mystery Thriller, SOMETHING IN THE WATER (2018) next.

Thank you, NetGalley and Ballantine Books, for loaning me an advance eBook of MR. NOBODY in exchange for an honest review.

Having read and liked Something in the Water, I was excited to read this one and certainly the premise was fascinating: a man awakens on a beach with no memory of who he is or how he got there; he has one word written on his hand. Enter neurologist Emma who is called to diagnose and help him as she's worked with fugue states and retrograde amnesia before. But she is running from her past as one horrific night caused her family to flee and change their names. So Emma meets Mr. Nobody, "Matthew" and feels a connection to him even though there is no recognition. What transpires is a series of events that are mind-boggling and interesting at the same time. I enjoyed this all the way through but I wanted more closure as the ending was not what I'd hoped for.

Some of the key things I consider when deciding how I felt about a mystery/thriller style book:
-did the "twist"/reveal surprise me
-did I like the reveal/did it make sense
-the usual: how did I find the characters/pacing/writing etc.

With Mr. Nobody, I was hooked from the start. My understanding is that amnesia storylines are becoming played out in this genre, but I personally haven't read widely enough where I'm sick of it yet. From the beginning, I was eager to find out how this mystery man was connected to Emma's past. I did not ultimately predict exactly what happened to Emma in her childhood, nor did I figure out exactly what Mr. Nobody's backstory was. However, I was underwhelmed on both counts. I admire that the author did something different, but that doesn't automatically make the book great. At no point did I have that type of reveal where you say "Whaaaat??" and have to put the book down for a couple of minutes to process what you just read.

I liked the storyline of Emma having to go back home and face her demons, but there were places I had to suspend disbelief. Are people really so crazy that the innocent children of an embezzler would need to enter witness protection? With Matthew, if he has been having these wacky life resets and doesn't know who he is or how to maintain any sort of normal life, how does he have the resources that he appears to use to completely take over someone's life? At one point it's even implied that he traveled halfway around the world to eliminate one of the the other candidates that would have been considered for the case over Emma.

It was a pretty good page turner while I was reading it, but once I had reflected on the way the story came together, it didn't live up to my initial excitement. If someone asked about it, I would probably tell them to give it a shot, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.

In this psychological thriller we find Mr Nobody, a man found on a deserted beach soaking wet and without any memories of who he is or how he got there. Called in to determine the mans diagnosis be it amnesia, fugue, or lying is Dr Emma Lewis, an emerging expert in the field of memory loss. He wants to discover his past, she wants to forget hers. This tightly woven novel got my attention in the beginning and held it to the very end. I found this to be wholly original and very well executed. The suspense and mystery build as more and more information is shared and revealed as it takes twists and turns and comes to a thrilling conclusion. All in all an excellent sophomore effort (although I think I liked Something in the Water a tad bit more) and recommend this one to anyone looking for a fast paced, suspensefully original story.

Thank you Random House, the author and NetGalley for granting me an ARC to read review and enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book!

I don’t even know where to begin my review as I’m still processing my thoughts. I read this one in one day and I literally could not put it down! I love psychological thrillers, especially ones where I have no idea where the story is going or how it is going to end. The author did a great job of slowly revealing details on the main character’s difficult past. She also did a great job of keeping you guessing as to who Matthew was, how he knew the things he knew, and whether he was going to regain his memory. I can honestly say that I had no clue how this story was going to play out in the end between Emma and Matthew. And as one who reads a ton of thrillers that is saying a lot for the author’s writing style and plot development!

What I didn’t like was honestly the ending itself. I still have so many questions about Matthew and wish the ending would have played out differently for him and Emma. I feel like the ending could have been explained a little bit more in terms of Matthew and who he was and why he did what he did. I was happy for Emma’s self reflection at the end and the fact that she seemed at peace.

Overall a good read!

Overall, Mr. Nobody was a decent thriller that kept me guessing. There were definitely times that I was completely sucked in and couldn’t wait to see what happened.

My biggest issue with the book was the pacing. It took until about 30% in for the story to really start coming together, and that was almost too long to hold my interest. Some aspects of the twists were also difficult to follow and felt a little bit far-fetched. If you want an easy read thriller, this one might be for you.