Jack is missing. And at first, it really seems like he’s probably dead. When someone goes missing on a beach and their car is left behind, that’s usually not a great sign. And Lily is devastated. Because Jack is the love of her life. And he’s just gone.

Meanwhile, in another town, a couple states over, a man appears that no one has seen in years. And his sister is so excited to see him, but there’s one catch. He doesn’t remember a thing. He doesn’t remember his childhood and he certainly doesn’t remember where he came from. Those years are a mystery. And everything really is a mystery. Because Lily discovered Jack isn’t who he says he was. And so she starts digging to find out.

I picked You Will Remember Me up because it has some pretty great reviews from some authors whose worked I’ve loved. Samantha Downing said, “Skillfully plotted and paced, every twist deepens the story until it explodes with an ending that made me gasp,” and Lisa Unger said, “Riveting, smart, and utterly diabolical.” So I knew it had to be a good one.

I will definitely remember You Will Remember Me. It’s a great read, full of richly drawn characters who all kind of operate on the fringes of acceptable life (and that makes them so much more interesting than you or I!) Special thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, but the ending was such a letdown I'm having trouble separating the book from its conclusion. A bit anti-climactic and creepy but not in a good or thrilling way. Just disappointed me overall.

YOU WILL REMEMBER ME is a dark, twisted story you won’t soon forget! When Lily’s boyfriend goes missing after a late-night swim, she is distraught and desperate to find him. But several states away, Maya has just been reunited with her stepbrother, who is now suffering from amnesia and whom she hasn’t heard from in two years. Lily and Maya both have stakes in the man recovering his memories, but only one will go to disturbing lengths to keep the secrets he knows buried. I admire Hannah Mary McKinnon so much for how twisted she let this story get. I was invested the entire time in finding out the truth, and by the time it all comes out, everything has already changed. The ending is somehow both surprising and inevitable, leaving the reader deeply unsettled, and the journey to get there is compelling, mysterious, and suspenseful. (Also, I have to shout out my love for Sam, Mike, and Fiona. In a book featuring a remarkably devious person who definitely steals your attention, it was nice to see the cast of characters rounded out with these absolute gems of humans.)

You Will Remember Me is a deviously twisted tale of obsession and long-buried secrets. That sound great, right!?
A man waking up on a beach in Maryland has no memory of his past, or even his name. He is left with foggy recollections that lead him to the state of Maine and directly to people who recognize him.

They say his name is Asher and he has been missing for years. He is quickly reunited with his long-lost sister, Maya, who takes him in and agrees to care for him during his recuperation. When Lily Reid's boyfriend, Jack, goes missing after an evening swim at a beach in their Maryland town, everyone suspects that he has drowned.

Lily refuses to give up on him however, so she begins an investigation into where he may have gone. It leads her to a small town in Maine. There she spots Jack on the street. Upon approaching him, he has no memory of her. Making matters worse, he and his sister, insist that his name is actually, Asher.

Lily is so confused. Why would Jack have given her a false name? It is clear to all, Ash is suffering from amnesia due to a head injury and Lily decides to stick around for a bit to interact with him more. She's still in love with him. Following three perspectives, Ash, Lily and Maya's, this story is a wild ride. It's fast-paced and engaging the entire way through.

Personally, I enjoy an amnesia story. I also love obsession tropes and long-buried secrets. This book has all of those things, so was a great recipe for me! A few of the elements involved in the story were a bit far fetched and a tad convenient, but honestly, it's still a great time. It's not a story that's asking you to take it too seriously.

I think if you go into this looking for fun twists, turns and devious actors, you're in for heck of a fun experience.
Hannah Mary McKinnon has a way with over-the-top drama. It's her style and I'm here for it. It'll keep me coming back, that's for sure!

Thank you so much to publisher, MIRA, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I truly appreciate it.

This one is great! I don’t know who to trust. The author does a great job making you feel for these characters but heed this warning: don't let your guard down as a reader! There are twists and turns and this one keeps you guessing!

This was so good! It was very creepy and frightening.

A man washes up on the beach with a head wound and no memory. Things slowly come back to him in fragmented pieces, enough for him to remember a phone number.

A woman in Maryland named Lily is frantic over her boyfriend Jack who never came home after going for a late night swim.

A woman in Maine named Mya has searched for her stepbrother Asher for two years after he just up and left after a series of tragic events.

Everyone is hiding secrets and lies. One person will stop at nothing to secure what they think is the perfect person to spend their future with. I instantly knew who the villain was, but they were truly more deranged than I thought once I got to the ending! This book drew me in immediately and I couldn’t stop reading. I had to find out the truth! I loved this fast paced and chilling story.

Thank you to MIRA Books for my copy.

This brilliantly told story starts off slow and builds to an unbelievable ending. I was utterly captivated by our three narrators and astounded by this insidious story that McKinnon created. When the book first started I thought this was going to be a familiar domestic mystery tale filled with deceit and unreliable narrators. Which this book does have but it does it in such a devious and unexpected way that I was hooked pretty early on. Jack’s amnesia really propels this story forward as we try to figure out who exactly he is since he doesn’t even know the kind of person he is. Maya and Lily both have a stake in Jack recovering his memories and as things are slowly revealed the story becomes so much more than it appears. Any lover of domestic mysteries or mysteries will appreciate McKinnon’s spin on the familiar tropes.

Kudos to Hannah Mary McKinnon, author of “You Will Remember Me” for writing such a chilling, suspenseful, psychological thriller, and intense, edgy, and intriguing novel. I would suggest keeping the lights on while reading this memorable dark story.I could not put this book down, and with every sound outside, I found myself extremely on edge. The genres for this novel are psychological thriller, suspense, mystery, thriller, and fiction. The author describes her dramatic characters as complex, complicated, obsessive, dysfunctional, and flawed. I am not a Psychiatrist, but I would say one is either a psychopath or sociopath. There are lies, betrayals, danger, gaslighting, disappearances, threats, crimes, and possibly murder. I highly recommend this intriguing book to other readers, and I would love to see this as a screenplay!

This book has the flavor and reminds me of the movie “Misery”, as well as some of Alfred Hitchcock, and Twilight Zone movies. There are twists and turns, and as I was reading, each of the three characters could be suspect.

One of the characters finds himself injured on the beach, and can’t remember anything including his name. Another character immediately is waiting for her boyfriend’s return and has a really bad feeling that something is very wrong. A step-sister has been searching for her step-brother for two years, and when she finally has him back with very little of his memory, she is very determined this time he will stay home.

WOW!! What a thought-provoking, evil and dark story!!! Happy Reading! You just have to read Hannah Mary McKinnon’s book, if you enjoy psychological thrillers!

This was a thriller that definitely thrilled me. It starts off with some really interesting concepts, with the missing man, amnesia and a boyfriend with a shady past. These are some of my favourite tropes in suspense fiction and they were fully realized through this story. I really liked the early chapters as I theorized about the man who washed up on the beach, and as the book progressed I got even more invested. I will say that there were a few portions of the book that switched up the pacing especially around the 20-30% mark, which did make this a little challenging to pick up during that portion, but this picked up over the course of the book.

The characters were the best part of this book. They definitely felt real and there reactions were honestly exactly how I would react to situations. There were many portions where the writing and characters worked so well together I had a legitimate physical reaction to the book! The writing was absolutely perfect for the style of thriller and by the end I was flying through this book, partially because of how readable the writing was and partially because the mystery just kept ramping up.

This book contains some of the craziest reveals that I have read in a while. I was looking for a dark and twisty mystery and this is exactly what I got. I am so glad that McKinnon has more books out, so I can immediately get into her backlist. I already have Sister Dear back and will be reading it within the next two weeks. What more do I have to say to get you to read this book?!?!?

In all honesty I had a great time with this book. The ending got me deeply and the whole atmosphere of the book was impeccable. There were some negatives, including the parts of the novel that dragged a little, but the positives outweigh the negatives. This was a generally fast read and one that will leave you desperate to find out more.

4 stars

Find a good chair and sit down. Get comfortable because you are not going to want to move until you FINISH THIS BOOK!

I'm not going to rehash what the book is about. The author can do that so much better than me. What I can tell you is that this book is unlike anything I have ever read. the author is not afraid to go to places that are dark and sinster.

Great read, great characters, just all together awesome!

Warning: you will not want to read this book if you like things all tied up neat and tidy at the end, because this book does not have that ending… although it might, depending on which of the three main characters you decide to root for.

We start in the POV of a man waking up naked and injured on a beach in Maryland, with no memory at all. Not even the knowledge of his own name. Tiny flashes of memory lead him to hitch a ride to Maine, where he just happens to end up in his old hometown when he bails out, just minutes from where his sister lives. Finding out his name is Ash, he slowly sets about trying to piece together his past.

Lily is the girl he left behind, the girl who was in love with ‘Jack’... and has no idea why he would be using a fake name. Trying to figure out where he would have gone, she follows the trail to Maine.

Maya is the loving stepsister who’s been searching for her brother for two years, after Ash just up and left. Now he’s back, but he doesn’t remember her. Doesn’t remember anything. Which might not be such a bad thing, actually…

Spending time in the POV of all three, the secrets of all of them are slowly revealed as Ash starts trying to piece together who he is and why he was living in Maryland as ‘Jack’. And slowly, it becomes clear that while all three of them have shadows in their past, one of them is in fact a malignant narcissist, a sociopath who’s killed before… and won’t hesitate to kill again to clear their path to the future they want. It started to become clear fairly early on who the villain was, but I must admit I absolutely did not see the ending coming. I was genuinely blown away when the final big confrontation went down, and by the aftermath of it. An absolutely masterful bit of writing by the author; the pieces were all in place but as a reader, you just don’t think it’s going to turn out that way. You think it’s all going to be neat and tidy and, holy wow. It was really, really not. I absolutely loved it, twisted as it was, and I’ll definitely be looking for more by this author. Five stars for a good read which did not turn out at all how I expected.

RATING: 2.5 STARS
2021; Mira/Harlequin

I am not a fan of amnesia storylines. I may have watched too many soaps as a teen. But, I knew that amnesia was big in this novel, before starting to it, so I was okay with that part. McKinnon handled that portion of it as realistic as you can in a mystery. What threw me a bit was how quickly and easily I figured out who the killer was. I thought maybe it was more of how it gets done, but it wasn't. The ending was different but very quick. I am in the minority with this one, so please read the other reviews as people loved it. What you are looking for in a mystery may be different than me. McKinnon is a great writer. While the two books I have read did not work for me, it is the mystery aspect, rather than the writing.

***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through NetGalley and an unfinished galley from the publisher. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***

Enjoyed the unreliable narrators. A very different thriller storyline. Dark and twisted but very good and well written

I was on a little thriller hiatus until You Will Remember Me by @hannahmarymckinnon sucked me back, in a big way. Without spoilers - it is the story of a man who wakes up on the beach with no memory at all, a woman whose boyfriend has disappeared and a woman who has been in love with her stepbrother for years and has been desperate to find him after he vanished without a trace. All three narrators are intertwined in a creepy, twisted story. I mean, did you read the part about the woman in love with her stepbrother??! This book was so suspenseful, wicked and terrifying. And really, truly just dark and disturbing. And all in a good, page turning, I read past the buddy read point kind of way. Any book that makes me gasp audibly is good in my book and this one did that to me more than once. There were some major jaw dropping moments going on. I definitely need to read more books by @hannahmarymckinnon because I couldn’t put this one down.

I am a huge thriller reader and I love a good plot with villainous characters. I’ve really enjoyed the one other book from Hannah Mary McKinnon that I’ve read, so I was excited to get an advanced copy of her newest book You Will Remember Me.

In You Will Remember Me, we have three various perspectives through the book. The first is an unnamed man, who we quickly find out is named Jack or is it Asher, that wakes up on the beach with zero memory of how he got there or even who he is. While he tries to uncover who he is. Then we have Lily, a Maryland resident whose boyfriend is missing after going for an evening swim. Lastly, we have Maya, Jack/Asher’s sister who hasn’t seen her brother in two years. While the premise of the story and the interwoven narratives really pulls you into the story, the predictable plot line and unlikable characters really set the tone for me on this one.

This is a decent read for anyone who enjoys a fast-paced story and doesn’t mind predictability. For me, even with the twist at the end (which honestly ruined the story even more for me), I don’t like to be able to predict every piece of a thriller so this one isn’t going to be on any of my favorite lists.


You Will Remeber Me is out now. Huge thank you to MIRA & Harlequin for my advanced copy for my honest review. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.

Thanks to @letstalkbookspromo and @harpercollins for including me on the book tour for 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘦 by @HannahMaryMcKinnon and for the advanced reading copy.

A man wakes up on a beach with a bloody wound on his head having no memory of his identity.

Lily Reid, frantically searching for her missing boyfriend Jack, learns he has been lying to her since they met. But she has been lying to him, too.

Maya Scott has been searching for her stepbrother, Asher, for over a year. When she’s reunited with him, she resolves never to let him go.

Both Lily and Maya make competing claims on the man from the beach, but with no memory of his past, he is unable to judge who is telling the truth. And with pernicious accusations against him, as well as the grievous bodily harm inflicted upon him leading to his accident, he realizes he himself might not be trustworthy, and may even be dangerous to those he loves.

The book alternates among these three points of view, and the shifting perspective and fast-paced plot effectively build tension. All three of the characters have secrets and dubious pasts which calls into question all they claim to be true. But only one will go to any length to get what they want.

Although I had hoped the ending would go in a different direction, I can see why the author made the narrative choices she did. They certainly made an impact!

Huge amount of thanks to NetGalley and Mira books for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion/review.
A man wakes up alone on a beach with no memory of who he is. Across town, his girlfriend wakes up to find him missing. As pieces of his memory return, he makes his way to his childhood home while his girlfriend searches for him. What she discovers shocks her and leaves her questioning their entire relationship. What he discovers leaves him with more questions. Who is he? Why was he on a beach alone?
Hannah Mary McKinnon writes a great thriller. It’s multi layered, engaging, unsettling, and disturbing. What else could you ask for in a thriller?!

This is a five plus stars book that had my mind percolating on the ending long after I had completed it. With the themes of amnesia, persevering love, evil that lurks and promises to destroy, this book was one that had me rooting for the underdog and gasping at some of the events in the plot. Well written does not begin to describe the plot. It was written in such a way that I became more than a reader or a spectator. I was waiting with bated breath until the villain was revealed and then I could not wait for the ending when the happy part came. When Jack disappeared from a beach in Maryland, Lily was determined to find him because she saw him as the love of her life, her second chance. Through happenstance, she finds him in Maine and follows him there, only to discover that he does not remember her at all. Lily befriends Jack’s sister Maya and is introduced to the real Jack, whose actual name is Ash. Unfortunately, Ash does not remember why he went to Maryland or anything really about his past. He does know that one of his former girlfriends disappeared and another died tragically, but he does not remember any details about either Celine or Kate. Lily accepts Ash as he is and wants to help him to remember. Maya is helpful, too, giving Ash a job to do while he recovers from his head injury. There are three points of view in the story and I found myself racing through each one, trying to find out what the truth was about Ash’s past and who Lily was and any secrets that Maya had. The action was fast-paced and non-stop, giving me time to take a deep breath before I plunged into the next heart-racing scene. With characters that were perfect for the parts they played, this book was like a play that I was watching unfold and I was sad when it ended. I cannot say more without giving away the shocking conclusion, but I will highly recommend this thriller to anyone looking for a book to entertain, enthrall and mystify. Wow! Just wow!
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

I loved #TheNeighbors and I love amnesia thrillers so I knew I had to read #YouWillRememberMe ASAP! I really enjoyed this book and I was not prepared for that ending 😧

Title: You Will Remember Me
Author: Hannah Mary McKinnon
Genre: Mystery/thriller
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Forget the truth.
Remember the lies.

He wakes up on a deserted beach in Maryland with a gash on his head and wearing only swim trunks. He can’t remember who he is. Everything—his identity, his life, his loved ones—has been replaced by a dizzying fog of uncertainty. But returning to his Maine hometown in search of the truth uncovers more questions than answers.

Lily Reid thinks she knows her boyfriend, Jack. Until he goes missing one night, and her frantic search reveals that he’s been lying to her since they met, desperate to escape a dark past he’d purposely left behind.

Maya Scott has been trying to find her estranged stepbrother, Asher, since he disappeared without a trace. Having him back, missing memory and all, feels like a miracle. But with a mutual history full of devastating secrets, how far will Maya go to ensure she alone takes them to the grave?

I feel like it’s usually kind of pointless to read a mystery or thriller where you already know who the culprit is. That being said, I never had much doubt who, exactly, was the bad guy in this story. With the multiple POVs in this story, there wasn’t much hidden about that—and sometimes the author was pretty heavy-handed about it as well.

I also feel like an author makes certain promises to the reader with the setup of a novel, and, frankly, I felt like the author broke those promises with the ending. That may just be me, but I doubt I’ll ever read anything from this author again.

Hannah Mary McKinnon was born in the UK and lives in Canada. You Will Remember Me is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 5/30.)