I really really liked this one and thought it was spot-on perfect right up until the big exciting final confrontational moment, where it felt a little unbelievable. And that's saying something, given the entire concept at work here. Still, despite the stretching of the limits of incredulity that were occasionally required, I found the story largely plausible and wholly engaging and entertaining.

While I did not care for most of the characters - at least the living ones - I still found myself oddly compelled by their story lines and oddly empathetic to their nearly impossible situations, even when they were nearly impossible due to their own choices and poor decision making. There is a fantastic pacing to this story, and a sense of menace and surreality that underpins the whole thing in a way that made for a really engaging read. Freeman is definitely on my list of people to watch...

Hallie Evers is having a bad day. Her boyfriend has broken up with her which ends up in her losing her home and she's lost her job, ending in her having an overdose and literally dying. She is brought back from the dead but is soon experiencing memories that belong to another woman. She must then go in search of answers as to what has happened to her.

Although I found the book easy to read with an interesting premise, there weren't many characters that I liked and Hallie herself was frustrating at times. Still I would recommend I Remember You to aficionados of the science fiction and thriller genre.

Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for this ARC.

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope he writes more! I am totally hooked!

This story begins when a troubled woman who’s just been fired and has struggled with mental health issues overdoses at a 4th of July rooftop party at a medical convention in Las Vegas. Told in first person, Hallie wakes up in the hospital with strange memories or are they hallucinations? Then she becomes convinced that she is being followed. Hallie is worried the mental illness that her mother suffered from is finally manifesting itself. Then someone tries to kill her. Her new memories take her from Vegas to the familiar streets of Boston, a city she has never visited. She is in search of answers about the murder of a sister she never had and what happened to the man that was accused of her murder because Hallie is convinced he didn’t do it, but the killer follows leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

While I enjoyed the underlying murder mystery, the story felt a little passive. There was a disconnect for me since Hallie didn’t personally know most of the parties involved with the memories in her head. They were also, apart from the artist, rather dislikable so I didn’t really care if they were the killer or got killed. While I had an inkling about the identity of the murderer, I kept reading to figure out the whys and hows. I may have been a little disappointed in the science fiction aspect of the story and that all the scientific characters involved in this breakthrough research came from rich, elite families with little morals. Recommended to thriller lovers who enjoy unreliable narrators.

Brian Freeman has a way of grabbing you from the beginning with no extra fluff or meandering narrative and with rabbit trails as dizzying as Hallie’s dreams. The science seemed a bit farfetched and the technology did have me wondering about possibilities, but I was in for this ride no matter where it took me.

As I was reading, I couldn’t figure out what the flame would be that had ignited the anger and the fury. Then out of nowhere, Brian Freeman began to close the loop. Twist after twist the author brings us to the edge of the cliff. To a place that will show Hallie --- How could I not put that together? The clue was there from the beginning.

The ending is a kaleidoscope of all the parts coming together and the reverberation of what is left.

No matter if you read Freeman’s stand-alone books or delve into his series, you will not be disappointed in this book or his previous works.

I Remember You is a page turning thriller that grabs you from the start and doesn't let go until the end!
Hallie Evers life is a mess. What could go wrong, does go wrong! On the evening of July 4th, while at a rooftop party in Las Vegas, Hallie dies. She is quickly revived and begins remembering things she can't explain. Intriguing twists and turns reveal she is seeing someone else's memories which expose a gruesome murder.
You can always count on author Brian Freeman to deliver a fast-paced, captivating and creative mystery/thriller story. His "Jonathan Stride" series is among my favourites.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Hallie sure is an interesting character!

Things go upside down in a New York Las Vegas minute when she dies during a rooftop medical convention!

Dr. Reed to the rescue though, no worries! He is armored with his handy defibrillator (never leaves home without it).

Hallie wakes up in the hospital in a very strange headspace. She realizes she needs to make some life changes. She has suffered some mental instability, struggled with drug use and drinks a little too much sometimes. She is intelligent though and knows how to work hard and efficiently. No one is going to pull the cover over her eyes if she can help it!

This story has an intriguing sci fi edge to it, a "mysteries of the brain" narrative that comes with plenty of questions. Hallie is a bit paranoid, having weird and creepy twilight zone dreams. I was wondering if Hallie was a guinea pig? Just what did they do to her?! And who are they?!

Pacing is a little off at times and we do have the finale confession that isn't my favorite, but still a clever and enjoyable ride full of ups and downs!

“I woke up with a dead woman’s memories in my head. Ever since then, people have been trying to kill me.”

I Remember You is the fourth stand-alone novel by best-selling American author, Brian Freeman. When twenty-nine-year-old Hallie Evers wakes up in a Las Vegas hospital bed, she’s surprised to be alive. After all, with an existing heart condition and a habit of purging, she knew that a bump of coke on top of being legless drunk was probably a bad idea.

But cut the girl some slack: she’d just lost her job (again), been dumped by her boyfriend (by text) for the roommate she thought was her best friend: “I was jobless, moneyless, friendless, sexless, and homeless” all on the same day, the Fourth of July. Just her luck, it was at a MedX cocktail party, and a certain Dr Reed Smith had an AED, and bingo, dead Hallie alive again.

Only, it seems crowded in her head. And awful nightmares: blood on her hands, her dead sister on the grass (she doesn’t have a sister!), a bloody golf club, a statue of Poseidon. They become waking dreams, and Hallie is convinced her mind is accommodating another’s thoughts and feelings.

And is she being watched, followed? Or has she inherited her mother’s paranoia? But then people start dying around her… and trying to kill her!

Her inexplicable familiarity with Boston (she’s never been) and a few other details she has put together have her pointing her car towards the east coast, determined to track down Reed Smith and find out exactly what happened. Maybe that will explain why people are after her.

When she does find out, there’s a murder from a decade earlier that the person in her head seems to be pushing her to learn the truth about. And the more questions she asks, the more people seem to have had a motive to commit murder.

Freeman gives the reader a cleverly plotted tale with plenty of red herrings and distractions to keep the reader guessing right up to the dramatic nail-biting climax. Not a lot of suspension of disbelief is needed for the speculative aspect of this crime thriller, and even the most astute reader is unlikely to pick the perpetrator.

Freeman conveys his setting with consummate ease and there are some interesting and clever turns of dialogue between Hallie and those who know about her “passenger”, and even a unique sort of love triangle. This one is unputdownable!

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer.

“You’d think that once you die, things can’t really get much worse, but oh no, you’d be wrong. That was when my nightmare began.”


This is a stand alone psychological thriller.

The subtitle for this book should be ‘I see dead people.’ Because Hallie, our protagonist, seems to have a hobby of witnessing murders.

There were a couple things that kept this book from being 5 stars, see below, but overall it was a pretty good read with an ending I surprisingly didn’t figure out.

Would recommend, from Las Vegas to Boston, it’s a wild ride!


Summary

Living with the repressed trauma of supposedly watching her schizophrenic mother kill herself, Hallie’s life has been peppered with bulimia and drugs. On July 4th, after losing her best friend, boyfriend, job, and apartment in one fell swoop the results of her reactive poor choices leaves her dead at a conference for doctors.

Until one doctor miraculously revives her.

But is it a miracle or a nightmare?

She begins remembering things and knowing things that she shouldn’t. Memories of a person dying. Someone else’s memories.

What’s happening to her? Is she turning into her mother?

“Paranoia. That was how it had started with my mother, too.”


That’s Part 1. Background context and Hallie dealing with the paranoia of what’s going on in her head and the suspicion that someone is after her.

Finally it coalesces into a need to escape Las Vegas. All roads lead to Boston.

Part 2.

This is where the action really starts. Part 1 is a bit slow, but now the pace picks up. Hallie is on a mission to figure out who these people are and what really happened in the memories popping into her head.

“No— somewhere, somehow, I had to believe in myself. I was not crazy. I was not inventing another world.”


Comments

First, trigger warning for sexual abuse, bulimia, self-harm, and suicide.

There are a couple scenes where Hallie purges and attempts to hurt or kill herself.

There are some f-words but they are more heavy in the first part than the rest of the book and almost all of them are in the context of Hallie’s angry outbursts at people.

There is also some sexual content. There is a painter who paints nude portraits. So there are some descriptions of the pictures and during the painting of the picture.



At first I didn’t think I was going to like this book. The first part was not my favorite, but it got better as it went along.


Although I didn’t like Hallie’s profanity, I did like her character (maybe not right away). She was highly intelligent and bold. She had a bit of a ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’ mentality throughout the book which made it more exciting. She wasn’t hiding behind her trauma and insecurity, she charged ahead to get answers. And yet, she wasn’t entirely reckless because she was smart.


If you are interested in the setting of the wealthy Newport families and mysterious deaths, definitely read An Extravagant Death by Charles Finch.

If you are interested in the idea of a person’s memories being in someone else’s head, check out Memory Lane by Sara Sheppard. Quite a few similarities.

If you like fast-paced thrillers, check out some of Brian Freeman’s other books!


**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

I've been enjoying Freeman's work as of late- this one has his typical skill in creating a scintillating crime fiction novel but also adds a sci-fi bend. The main character in this book has a HOST of issues, for which she is half heartedly in therapy for. She has a medical emergency and when she awakens, she has someone else's memories alongside her own. Now she has to figure out the troubled past and unanswered questions from not only her own past, but this new person who she knows but doesn't know.

This book is along the vein of Black Crouch's work, which is just enough sci-fi to keep me engaged, but not out of this world. A thing that does bug me about books is too much moving around- the character is back and forth from Vegas, to Boston to Newport... seemingly instantly. I get annoyed when there's too much moving around. It's not realistic. In a sci-fi (ish) novel, I suppose it doesn't have to be.

Great read from a recent new fave.

I Remember You by Brian Freeman

Wow this was a good story. I was intrigued by the twists in the story. Hailey Evers is having a hard time with her life. On July 4 all bad things come to a head with Hailey. She loses her boyfriend to her best friend, she loses her job, and she loses her place to live. Hailey is dealing with so much she goes to a party and she over indulges and dies. Lucky where this happens is at a medical convention and their are doctors in the house. Hailey gets saved by a doctor and wakes up in the hospital she is not herself though. She is having dreams and all kinds of weird stuff is happening to her thoughts and in her head.

This story takes you for a roller coaster ride with Hailey Evers as the driver. There is a bit of sci-fy in the story so don't be discouraged by it. You will not figure out who did the murder and why they did it. All the characters in the story where interesting. Can you imagine having someone else's memories and seeing the world through their eyes in your dreams. This book will keep you turning pages it grips you and pulls you in.

I really cannot say enough about this story it was well written. Hailey mother had paranoid problems and mental health problems. So Hailey thought she was experiencing the same as her mother. Hailey was seeing a therapist to help her get answers to her own issues with the death of her mother.

If you like psychological thrillers then this book is for you. It is a five star read and I if you are a thriller reader do not pass this book up it is worth the read. I felt like it was different from your standard thriller so that is a bonus as well. You will not guess who the murderer is it even caught me off guard.

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for a free copy of this book for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I loved this book! A superbly well written suspenseful thriller!
The main character Hallie has a lot of negativity in her life, things are going from bad to worse!
A definite page turner full of action, mystery and an intriguing storyline! Nail-biting twists and turns will keep you turning the pages!
The characters aren’t all good, should Hallie trust them, will she walk into more dangerous situations, who can she confide in? An absolutely engaging story, an exciting build up to an ending that will shock!

Congratulations to the publisher, NetGalley and this new author for me, for the opportunity to read and review this book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

I'm speechless now after finishing this story. I think the author has such a great gift in writing a story so unbelievable but also one that touches so deeply. And intrigued the heck out of me.

Crazy scientists, women that live the other ones past and so much suspense and some gruesome scenes.

I honestly didn't know who to believe or even what to believe in the beginning. It really led me to think that this is actually a schizophrenic character that just makes up her whole story. But slowly, all the pieces of this intricate puzzle fell into place.

The suspenseful moments kept building up, and that ending was really satisfying for me. I still have unanswered questions about Savannah and Skye and about Haley and her past.

I would recommend this story to any twisted thrillers lovers.

🆓📖Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy through NetGalley

Wow! I liked this! This story kept me guessing, and once one twist was revealed, there was another one right behind it! Hallie is a flawed by likeable character who is revived after collapsing and dying at a 4th of July party. Suddenly she begins remembering things, she shouldn't know. Soon she uncovers whose memories she's visioning but why? Twist after twist, Freeman takes you from Las Vegas to Boston, from parties to labs, from the city to the beach. A mystery with some very interesting characters who Hallie encounters in her search. A riveting psychological thriller from one of my favorite authors, and he did not disappoint!!!
Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my arc!

Brian Freeman just cannot write a bad book! Every new book he writes that is not a new Jonathan Stride series entry, I am at first disappointed, but, hey, it IS a Brian Freeman book so if he writes it, I will read it. And I am NEVER disappointed! This one is no different. Honestly, based on the premise, experimental brain surgery/ memory transference/possible sci-fi stuff, would not be something I would normally pick up and read, but see above, it IS still Brian Freeman, so I read it. So glad I did. I loved the main character, Hallie. Hallie suffers from childhood trauma, bulimia, depression and several other issues. On the 4th of July after a few more bad things happen, she goes to a party on a roof, blacks out and her heart stops. She comes to in a hospital with someone else's memories. WHAAAT?? What follows is a tension and suspense filled story that will leave you breathless. I highly recommend giving this one a shot! Also, read everything else from this guy! Just sayin'.

A big thank you to #NetGalley and #thomasandmercer for the free copy of #irememberyou. The opinion is my own.
A PLOT RECAP:
This psychological thriller focuses on Hallie, a 20-something woman who has attempted suicide a couple times due to a blocked childhood trauma that is hinted at throughout the book and she has been in and out of therapy trying to deal with it. She suffers a strange medical occurrence in which she seems to receive memories from another unknown woman (Skye). This unwanted experimental brain treatment of transferring memories to Hallie forms the backbone of the story. The strangeness, the tension, the twists and turns, build from there as she tries to unravel what's going on in her head.


Hallie was born and raised in Las Vegas, but after her incident feels compelled to move to Boston. Once there she finds she knows the neighborhoods and streets better than she did Las Vegas, and yet she's never been there. As she meets people from Skye's life and knows things about them she couldn't know, the plot thickens. There's the sister that is murdered (did Skye kill her?), the husband she wanted to divorce, the secret lover, the jealous younger sister. And with all that going on, she discovers someone is trying to kill her - this part through the middle gets a little muddy sometimes, but stick with it. The payoff is worth it!

MY THOUGHTS
Freeman does a great job of illustrating the worries and stress that Hallie is under without overdoing the angst (a pet peeve of mine). I could feel her tension spiraling as things became more confusing. Hallie is an interesting character - shown as a broken woman who gradually finds a purpose and reaches the point where she's struggling to hold onto her identity and not let Skye totally take over. It's SO well done that I could see how it might be easy to let a strong personality take over your life.

Could you imagine having a stranger's memories suddenly in your head and one of the memories is of an apparent murder? Yikes. There's a twist or two along the way, but the end. Well. The end. I didn't see that coming at all and it's an excellent twist.

If you enjoy a twisty thriller, a woman in crisis who survives, or a story with a bit of futuristic medical "what if" treatments, I Remember You is the book for you. It's recommended. (also reviewed on Pinterest & Amazon)

Talk about having a bad day!‍🤦‍♀️

July 4th should have been a day to celebrate! But poor Hallie has nothing to cheer about. Let’s see…first, she was fired from her job. And just to tie a pretty bow on this perfectly horrid day, her boyfriend just left her for her roommate. Great, now she’s homeless and lonely!

Presently attending a Las Vegas rooftop event, Hallie heart suddenly stops. Literally!

But what is this?! Maybe her luck is changing. After all, if you’re going to have a cardiac event make sure to do it at a convention of medical personnel. Hallie has been quickly revived with a portable device! Well that was handy!

While Hallie recovers she realizes she isn’t alone in her thoughts. Someone else’s memories are now becoming hers.

This was an extremely clever storyline that bordered on the sci-fi side. But mostly, it was a full-tilt thrill ride as Hallie tries to decider the memories while running for her life!

It’s been years since I’d picked up a book from this author. Now I’m looking forward to see what he conjures up next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer

On July 4th, Hallie Evers, 29, had just been fired; her boyfriend dumped her; and at a party, her heart stopped. As the party was filled with medical people, a doctor was able to get her heart restarted using his own defibrillator. She had not only been drinking but had snorted cocaine.

Hallie’s childhood was not good. Her mother shot herself when Hallie was just 10. Later, Hallie slit her wrists, but survived. She has also had bulimia which has weakened her heart. Since recovering from her heart incident, she is having visions and memories of people and places she knows she has never visited. She feels as though her brain is crowded.

Now, out of the hospital, she knows someone is after her and has tried to attack her. Why?

The plot here is quite unusual and I applaud the author for his imagination and ingenuity. I felt that some of Hallie’s extensive visions to be a bit tedious which made the book too long for me. However, I was very surprised by the ending. If you are looking for a really tense cat and mouse kind of book, this one is for you. Enjoy!

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thanks to Thomas and Mercer and Netgalley for providing this ARC. I found this to be an average thriller, centered on some implausible ideas about memory transfers. I just found so much of it to be far-fetched,, to the point that it was taking me out of the story. I did press on to the end. I would only recommend this to existing fans of the author.

(Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for a honest review)

Publication date: 09 August 2022
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Thoughts:

This is my first book from this author and I chose this book for the blurb. It sounded like an interesting thriller, I usually do not go for books that have forgotten/recalled memories but made an exception for this.
I did not have a good first impression of Hallie because of how fast she decided to give up. She didn’t keep up to the description of her by the author. I thought she was quite messy and quick to jump into making decisions. Somehow I didn’t like her throughout the book.
I did like the minor twists in the book, the antagonist was easy to spot but the method was not easy to decipher. This book also had some sci-fi aspects in it which kept the book interesting. The side characters made this book worth reading till the end.