Find Me was the perfect book to pull me out of a reading slump. The main character was in a car accident 15 years ago and has no idea who she is since then. I really enjoyed the amnesia element because it lent itself to lots of mystery. There were a lot of characters to keep track of, so it took my full attention while reading in order to not confuse anyone. But having a lot of characters also meant more storylines, which I enjoyed. I really loved Alafair Burke’s writing. It piqued my interest from the start and kept me on my toes through the whole book. Find Me is a twisty psychological thriller about a character who disappears and her best friend who tries to solve the mystery.

Find Me is the newest thriller from Alafair Burke. In this novel Hope has had long term amnesia from a car accident. Her best friend Lindsay has been her main support system. She’s now ready to try life on her own and moves into a rental cottage. Then the mysterious events begin to happen. Plenty of action keeps this story moving right along. Read and enjoy!

Oh man, I had forgotten how much I love Alafair Burke's writing. For some reason I could never get into her dad's stuff, but I read the first Ellie Hatcher book and I was hooked. This story is about a girl who is looking for her missing best friend. Which would be simple enough, except her friend doesn't have a real identity. She was in an accident and has no memory of who she was before hand. Somehow this case ties to Ellie, and her desire to find out what really happened to her father. I finished it in a day. Once I started I couldn't stop. I think this one might be the last in the series, because it pretty well wrapped up Ellie's dad's storyline, but I don't want it to end!

This is my second book by this author and it’s another decent read that falls right down the middle for me. I think the author has mastered intricate and complex plot development but the character development is lacking. I found myself interested in how everything would come together but I wasn’t invested in how. I lacked an attachment to the characters. I do think this will work for some that enjoy police procedural and a complex plot. I was surprised by the ending but again not sure if I cared.

3.25 amnesia stars

An interesting story featuring a woman who has been suffering from amnesia after being found after a horrific car accident in a stolen car. “Hope Miller” has rebuilt her life in New Jersey and developed a deep friendship with the woman who found her, Lindsay Kelly. Now it’s 15 years after the accident and Hope wants to strike out on her own in the Hamptons.

Lindsay is reluctant to let her go and soon Hope has stopped communication. Lindsay fears the worst and heads out to find her friend. Lindsay is a defense lawyer and puts those skills to work trying to get the local police to search for Hope. As the days tick by with no word from Hope, Lindsay is getting frantic. Has Hope’s past caught up to her?

Lindsay calls on Ellie Hatcher, a New York police officer, to help with the case. It was an interesting mystery, and I was curious to see if we would learn about the real identity of Hope. There are some good twists and turns in this one.

This is my third Alafair Burke book and I didn’t realize it featured Ellie Hatcher and is actually book #6. Perhaps someday I can read that series! I think this one works as a stand-alone.

Hope Miller disappears and her best friend Lindsay Kelly is desperate to find her and suspects the worst has once again entered Hope’s life. Years ago Lindsay found Hope thrown from an overturned vehicle and helped her survive. But Hope has no memory of the wreck or anything about her life before the accident. Now she’s disappeared and Lindsay is certain the danger Hope was escaping has come full circle and she has been abducted. From this early opening the plot becomes murky as Burke pulls in NYPD homicide detective Ellie Hatcher who happens to have a possible connection to Hope’s disappearance due to a blood spot with DNA linked to a notorious murderer. Lindsay hunt to locate Hope and discover the truth of her past keeps the pages turning (no spoilers!) once the true focus of the story becomes apparent to readers.

by Alafair Burke

Thank you to Harper Collins for the #gifted copy! This one is out January 11!

I think you can expect to see this one around Bookstagram- it was a police investigation type of story with some domestic suspense that kept me guessing!

SUMMARY:
Lindsay found a woman, now known as Hope, after a car crash. Hope has amnesia after the crash and doesn't remember anything about her life from "before". Lindsay and the townspeople of Hopewell have helped her adjust to her new life, until Hope decides she wants to go out on her own. When Hope goes missing, Lindsay seems to be the only one who is worried.

MY THOUGHTS:
○ There were lots of characters to start, and it was hard for me to pick up the plot.
○ As Lindsay was fighting to find Hope, I admired her persistence. I wouldn't have been able to stick to trying. As it was, I started to doubt Hope's story, knowing all the details I did.
○ I thought the second half of the book was better than the second half- it went much quicker and all of the details started to come together.
○ There was a little bit of the investigation that I found difficult to follow- maybe too many details or just too technical for my own understandings, but I think it didn't distract too much from the story!

I read this back in December while I was going through my ‘nothing looks good’ reading slump that always seems to find me at the end of every year. I pick up a book, I put it back down. But Find Me by Alafair Burke held my attention from the get-go and I finished it in one sitting on Christmas Day.

This is a multiple POV mystery/suspense that seemed to have a thousand plot threads. Readers are first introduced to Hope Miller, a woman found on the side of the road one rainy evening next to an overturned car. She has no memory of who she was before, so she settles into small-town life, protected by the people of Hopewell, who know why she can’t remember who she is or how she came to be injured.

Hope decides to try to make a new life for herself in East Hampton. Working for a realtor off of the books and living in a small cottage while its owner is out of town. This should be the perfect opportunity to build a new life, but when Hope’s past seems to catch up with her, it’s her best friend (who is also the woman who found her lying injured that rainy night) Lindsay who is determined to find her.

The beginning is kind of complicated… introducing new characters at a rapid pace. The date and time stamps at the beginning of each chapter also confused me for a bit, until I decided to ignore them and just go with the flow. I believe this book is part of a series by this author, but I don’t think my having not read any of the previous installments either helped or hindered my enjoyment of this book. Although, I might have to look into the Ellie Hatcher series now.

Despite the convoluted start, I was drawn into this twisty-turny mystery and decided I couldn’t put it down until I discovered what happened to Hope. I guessed the bad guy’s identity about mid-way through and was satisfied to find out I was correct. There is a wow moment right at the end when you, the reader, finally get inside Hope’s head as she’s talking to her therapist.

All in all, this was a good read and I look forward to diving into this author’s backlist.

Find Me
by Alafair Burke
Pub Date: January 11, 2022
Harper
The disappearance of a young woman leaves her closest friend reeling and an NYPD homicide detective digging into her own past in this thrilling mystery full of twists from the New York Times bestselling author of The Better Sister and The Wife.
Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the ARC. A note from the author appeared in Goodreads: I did want to make clear that FIND ME is a standalone! One of my recurring characters, Ellie Hatcher, does appear on the page. Those of you who have missed her can say hello. I certainly found this book enjoyable and I have not read her others books.
Interesting stand-alone!
4 stars

Alafair Burke is one of my favorite thriller/mystery authors and when I got approved to read this title early, I was beyond ecstatic. Find Me is a domestic thriller that true crime fans will devour. The story has murder, missing person cases, and ties to an old (seemingly solved) serial killer case. I hope that when Find Me is published it gets the recognition that it deserves, as it is such a strong book from its genre. I highly recommend this title and every other novel that Burke has written.

I’m a fan of police procedurals, so I really enjoyed Find Me.

I had no idea until I marked this as “read” in Goodreads that this book is #6 in the Ellie Hatcher series. How did I read this whole book not knowing Ellie is a repeat character?? While she doesn’t play a huge part in the main plot, we learn some big things about her past. I’ve read some of Alafair’s backlog, but nothing earlier than 2016 which explains why I missed this. I’ve liked her writing more and more with each book I’ve read, so I’m definitely interested in checking out the earlier books in the series.

All that said, this book definitely functions as a standalone. My one related thought is that there were a lot of characters to keep track of. If one knew Ellie and her boyfriend and brother from past books, that’s three fewer characters to try to keep track of details for.

As always, Alafair brings a fascinating insight into legal procedure into her writing. Find Me was unique in that it read like a police procedural, but it was all from the POV of the lawyer. For the most part, the lawyer was the one doing the investigative work. The police saw Hope’s history and dismissed her as just having run away from home, perhaps for a second time. Once another body is found and the police begin to take an interest in Hope’s disappearance, they peg her as a person of interest.

There’s a lot to keep track of in this book: characters, hints, and twists add up to keep the reader on their toes. It definitely took my full concentration, and required a few false starts until I had the time to sit down and absorb all the information thrown at us in the first few chapters. I enjoyed the premise and the story, as well as the final twist. I expect that it may be a controversial ending among avid thriller readers, but I was a fan!

Readers of the Ellie Hatcher series will definitely want to pick this one up to find out something special about her backstory, and lovers of police procedurals will want to pick this one up to enjoy its standalone story. Find Me will be published on January 11, 2022.

Find Me is the sixth book in the Ellie Hatcher story, although it works well as a stand-alone novel. Once again, Alafair Burke has given readers a psychological mystery that, while quick to read, is filled with twists and turns, and an ending that may not be exactly what many readers will have anticipated. At times the book slows down a bit too much, but each time it is rescued before the slowdown becomes a dead stop. All-in-all Find me is a book worthy of readers' time..

I’m a fan of this authors works and I enjoyed th wild ride she takes the reader in this book. I love a story with lots of twists and just as many characters, love to try to guess and lead down one road to only hit a dead end and start all over again . I highly recommend you read this book.

A tale of amnesia for a young woman who was in a car accident and her friends who helped her get back on her feet. She suddenly goes missing and everything changes.

This was a pretty decent book - 3 stars.

Hope's life is a mystery. Who is she really? She doesn't have a clue. Retrograde amnesia is what the shrinks call it. Hope just calls it emptiness. She is a blank slate. Yes, she has spent the past fifteen years building a new life, but her life is incomplete and that is an awful feeling.
Her best friend, Lindsay is her savior and her mentor. It was Lindsay who rescued her from that car wreck down in the ravine. They have been so close, and Hope doesn't want to hurt her BFF but after 15 years, Lindsay has also become very suffocating, like a helicopter mom. Hope wants to strike out on her own and Lindsay is not happy about it, but she relents.
Hope moves to the Hamptons and in almost no time at all has a new job and a place to rent. Everything is falling into place and Hope is really happy until one day she opens the door to leave a house she has just staged for her boss and runs into the chest of a stranger ... or is he? From here, everything begins to unravel.

This is the third Alafair Burke mystery I have read, and I have found them all very satisfying. I can see why she was chosen to co-write books with Mary Higgins Clark. They share very similar writing styles and she always keeps the reader guessing.

Hope Miller was thrown from a vehicle with Indiana plates in an accident 15 years ago in New Jersey. Since then, she has no memory of anything that happened prior to the accident. Basically adopted by the local police chief and his teenage daughter, Lindsay, Hope eventually started a new life, but never recovered her memory from before the accident. Now, Hope has gone missing after moving to The Hamptons to gain some independence. Lindsay is concerned for her friend, although the local police are reluctant to do much about it. When a drop of blood connects the site of Hope’s disappearance to a notorious Kansas murderer, Lindsay turns to NYPD homicide detective Ellie Hatcher for help. Ellie has her own personal connection to the Kansas case and she joins Lindsay in the search for the truth beneath long-buried secrets and Hope’s real identity.

I really appreciated how the story was broken up, each chapter set up the day and time which really helped with the overall pacing of the story. The story itself moves really quick so I would suggest making sure you have time to read this one almost like a binge read because you won't want to put it down once you are halfway and things start to piece together. The investigative detail is nicely woven into the story and the plot generally moves along at a decent pace. The opening sections certainly keep you engaged and interested in what is happening, and there are some solid twists and turns as the story unfolds. The characters are nicely handled and developed, especially Lindsay, and there is a real tenderness to some of the relationships. I really thought I knew where the story was going then it went in a completely different place about a 1/3rd of the way through. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Overall, I thought this was a really good novel based on the fact that it held my attention the entire time and kept me wondering where it was going. I loved the LGBTQ+ representation in the novel as well and thought it was a really quick read. “Find Me” is a must-read for fans of mystery thrillers. I look forward to reading more from this author. Thank you to Harper Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Alafair Burke has delivered another outstanding psychological thriller. Hope Miller suffers from amnesia after a car accident and years later has no recollection of her life before. When she moves to the Hamptons, her friend Lindsay is worried about her well-being. When someone is found dead and Hope goes missing, many questions arise and detective Ellie Hatcher is brought into the mix to untangle the multiple threads of this mystery.

Burke is a master at creating a highly suspenseful and complex mystery with a lot of nuances, and twists. This was a total page-turner and I was hooked right from the beginning. Burke is once again at the top of her game and I can't wait for more!

This was a very quick and entertaining read. I did not like the ending so much. Everything wrapped up nicely. The characters weren't very developed, but you still know enough about them to find out who you like or don't like. It's a quick murder mystery/suspense read. If you like those kinds of books (not too much thought involved; you just go with the flow of the book), you will like this book. I took a star away because of the last chapter.

I am a big Alafair Burke fan, so it was my privilege to read the stand-alone book Find Me, a story about Hope Miller, who has lived with total amnesia since she was found about 15 years ago by the woman who is now her best friend, Lindsay Kelly. When Hope disappears and then becomes a suspect in a murder investigation, attorney Lindsay makes it her mission to clear her friend's name and possibly unlock the mystery of Hope's past at the same time.

I have to admit, there were a few roadblocks along my reading journey with this book. I felt like the book dragged in the middle, and after maybe 70% of the book leading me in one direction, it suddenly went in a different direction altogether, introducing some new characters and then wrapping everything up very neatly at the end. Having said that, however, there were a couple of big surprises that I loved near the end, so stick with it and enjoy the ending!

Another thing I loved about Find Me is that the author brings in Detective Ellie Hatcher, the star of a series of Alafair Burke books. Ellie is a supporting character in Find Me, and it is not necessary to be familiar with her character from the series to enjoy her presence in Find Me; in fact, she is my favorite character because of her fierce determination to uncover the truth.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ms. Burke, and publisher Harper Collins for an advanced copy of Find Me, expected out in early 2022, in exchange for my honest review.

Not my favorite Alafair Burke novel, but Find Me is still a solid read. I loved the pacing and the twists, thought the ending was solid, but found the characters lacking a bit. That said, anyone who enjoys a good thriller will likely enjoy this read.