What Was This Original Flummery! 😳😯🤯😳

Holy snickerdoodles! Okay this was one wild ride of a thriller with the most unique aspect to it. Talk about a real deal psychological thriller! I love it when you aren't even sure if you can trust the main character. You just have no idea what's to come and you can try to guess but you can't. The suspense is so thick, you'd need a chain saw to hack through it. I can't believe how much I liked this!

Mყ 𝐒ყɴ𝐨ρѕιѕ: It's the 4th of July and Hallie has had the day from hell. She decides to attend a party with big wigs of the medical field in Las Vegas. Surely things can't get any worse! That is, until she dies. Waking up in a hospital after a heart attack, she realizes she doesn't feel like herself at all. Her head feels too full, she's remembering people & places she's never been or seen & the nightmares she has feel like actual memories she's never had. So is Hallie just becoming crazy like her mother did, trying to follow and uncover the memories; or is there actually substance to these visions she's having of someone else?

The twists, turns & deception unveiled was continuous and keeping you on the edge of your seat was Freeman's forte. I will say, I did see some of the ending coming towards the finish, but I assure you that did not take away from the book at all nor how it was delivered! It was like ordering the chef's rib dish specialty, but being given the best steak of your life instead... for free! Absolutely wonderful twists & turns. A real genius for a thriller.

🔴 Trigger Warning: Self Harm & Drug Use At Beginning Of Book

Thank you to NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer for this ARC.
Release Date: August 9, 2022

𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭: 4 / 5 Beach Waves! 🌊

I was blown away by reading this book! It’s the first time reading anything by Brian Freeman, and let me assure you, it will not be the last.

I didn’t do what most reviewers do–read the blurb first. I wanted to be surprised. By that, I was that and so much more. The novel is fast-paced and enjoyable, and I like all the characters. I also like the storyline and how everything is intertwined. Not to mention the surprise ending that I did not see coming.

Mr. Freeman did incredible work building suspense and tension, having readers rooting for certain characters, and making this novel unforgettable.

After reading I Remember You, I went to Amazon to purchase a couple more of Mr. Freeman’s novel. He won me over. I am now a new fan!

I Remember You is a fast paced stand alone thriller by Brian Freeman. Hallie is in her late 20’s, living in Las Vegas, working as a marketing writer for medical device companies. She has a bit of a rough life and has burned bridges with some of her previous employers and is currently unemployed. While attending a medical conference at a casino on the Las Vegas strip, she suffers a medical emergency and her heart stops. When she awakens in the hospital she has memories that are not hers. She is dreaming and remembering someone else’s life. She keeps seeing a murdered woman. What is going on? And she tries to return to normal and sort out what’s going on, she realizes she’s being followed. Once an attempt is made on her life, she flees Las Vegas trying to figure out whose memories she has in her head.
This was such a great story! It’s part thriller, part murder mystery, part techno thriller. Little by little Hallie’s past is revealed and the past of whomever she has in her head. This was such an original story and I really enjoyed the plot twists. Definitely check this book out, you will not be disappointed. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Hallie Evers is a young woman with some serious problems. She’s been seeing a psychiatrist in an attempt to deal with a catastrophic event in her past, an event so traumatising that it’s caused her to attempt to take her own life. Then recently something else, at a 4th July party she collapsed and her heart stopped. Only the intervention of a doctor who was attending the same event saved her – he managed to get her heart started with the help of a mobile defibrillator. But now she’s feeling strange, her mind ‘crowded’, where are things going to go from here?

This book pretty much fits neatly into two halves, the before and the after. I won’t attempt to explain that, it’ll become abundantly clear to anyone who reads the book. In the first half Hallie wrestles with her issues and we get to know her. We also glean a little more information concerning her past, though some events are still pretty murky. It all bumps along in a fairly loose narrative, with Hallie coming across as smart and sharp – I really got to like her. Then things change and the second half of the story is tighter, the pace faster, the author pointing us in multiple directions. The puzzle starts to unwrap itself but things could still end numerous ways.

For me the transition somewhat upset the flow, I preferred the early part and would have been happy to read a tale that had fewer trap doors and was a little less convoluted. But that’s just a personal preference. This is certainly a clever mystery which asks the reader to take a leap of faith on a pivotal issue. But it rewards those that go with it by serving up a story that threatens to get in your head to the extent you involuntarily play games with it well before it all reaches a dramatic climax.

Pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down, I Remember You will be a summer page turning blockbuster filled with suspense and mystery. Unusual in its plot, we’re introduced to Hallie and Skye, on the outside two completely different women with more in common than you first realize. As they travel their journey together both are looking for healing.
Towards the end, a huge reveal that really wasn’t surprising, it it didn’t take away from the main plot.

Hallies life is a mess. She loses job after job and can’t maintain a relationship. She has a near death experience at the beginning of the book. After this she resists help but there are changes she can’t explain or understand. This book had a slow start and I didn’t particularly like the main character. The book is well written but leans towards sci fi which isn’t my favorite genre. There is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. I have enjoyed other books by this author but I struggled with this one. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Thank you Thomas & Mercer, Brian Freeman and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Brian Freeman NEVER disappoints. Once again, he's been able to merge a psychological thriller with a bit of a who-dunnit, and the results again leave the reader satisfied.

Brian's stories are readable! They don't try to be overly complicated, difficult to follow just for the sake of being difficult, but instead just take you through the story's journey one step at a time.

Thanks Brian for keeping the reader entertained!

Hallie Evers dies in the beginning of I Remember You, a novel by popular author Brian Freeman. The book seems different from his usual fare, and,k at first, I didn't like it. But given the author's credibility, I stuck with it and found myself immersed in the story. Hallie lived to tell more tales, not all of them true. But they sure were interesting! How it all wraps up is for you to guess.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

A psychological thriller with a sci-fi element, this was a twisty and exciting book.

I couldn't predict this books ending and you won't either

Hallie Evers is on a rooftop party on the Fourth of July in Las Vegas having a really bad day. She just lost her apartment, friend, boyfriend, job, and to top it all off she just died.
Hours later- Hallie wakes up in the hospital thanks to a fast acting Doctor attending the party who saved her life. Unfortunately the pleasure of being alive is short lived as she begins to experience some unusual symptoms. She's experiencing a "crowded" feeling in her head, she's having bouts of paranoia about being watched and followed, and now she is having vivid dreams & memories that don't belong to her of a woman's murder. Fearing that she is suffering from the same mental illness that tormented her mother and led to her early death; she begins searching for answers.

I Remember You is a fast-paced psychological thriller in which a woman's death triggers memories of another woman's murder. Brian Freeman knows how to write a novel that immediately pulls you in to the story and keeps you wanting to turn the page. *Warning* Hallie's character suffers from trauma including: sexual abuse, drug addition, disordered eating, family history of mental illness, suicide, etc. which may be trigger's for some readers. This was a quick and enjoyable read for me with lots of action and a nice twisty whodunit. I felt like it lagged a little bit towards the end but not enough for me to reduce my rating...the perfect weekend read.

I greatly enjoyed this book. The story was fast paced, and like other Brian Freeman books, gave the reader a great sense of place and well drawn characters. Hallie Evers is introduced as a deeply wounded woman whose past traumas set her up as an adult to believe she deserves nothing good. She self-sabotages with constant reckless abandon. Against the stark backdrop of the party culture of Las Vegas, without anyone of substance in her life, she is a woman on the edge; a breath away from complete annihilation. A chance encounter at a party changes the course of her life and sets her on a very jagged path to self-acceptance and self-love. This path is loaded with self-serving, obsessed, entitled people for whom the end more than justifies the means. Hallie desperately needs someone to trust to guide her to safer shores, but who? We meet a concerned Dr., a dedicated therapist, a well intentioned family member, and a soulful artist along the way. The injection of a futuristic medical research plot line, normally not my cup of tea, tied everything together for me. The ending, which can be tricky with an intricate plot line and multiple complex characters, brought the book to a satisfying crescendo and rewarded the reader with a glimpse into a life where Hallie was finally able to find some peace. A read that’s well worth it.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to preview I Remember You.
This book tells the story of a young woman who is a “hot mess”. Hallie is scattered, on drugs, loses jobs and men regularly. A near death experience changes her life and she starts to experience changes in herself that cannot be explained. Hallie is determined to find the source of her sudden transformation.
A cross country expedition with a strong premonition her life is no longer her own takes her into a world of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Will Hallie survive or become a victim?
Somewhat predictable but Freeman is a great author. Good

After absolutely loving Thief River Falls by this author, I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it took a bit of an sci-fi twist that is just not my cup of tea. I didn’t like the main character and I found the story line too unrealistic. However, the book was well written and there was a twist I hadn’t seen coming that ultimately redeemed the author in my eyes.

Thank you to @netgalley and #thomasandmercer for the ARC in exchange for my review.

This wasn't what I expected. Was very far-fetched. I'm sure people will find it an exciting beach read. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

This is my first Brian Freeman novel to review. Hopefully it won't be my last. A psychological thriller involving memory planting and the like, it contained enough twists and turns to keep one guessing for most of the book. Some will claim a flash of truth at the end but most readers will not. Freeman's writing is superb... some fantastical coincidences occur, but they never get in the way of the story. This one was fun....looking forward to more.


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"How bad was that July 4th? Let me count the ways." (Hallie) That line alone caught my interest and from that point on, I knew it would be a great story. There was a certain rhythmic quality to every word. The story was hauntingly beautiful, sad and tragic and her redemption was felt in a big way! Hallie finds herself in several situations that make her question her sanity! And there were some individuals along the way who were making her feel that way. For someone to have the audacity to use her as a scientific experiment was way over the top and just creepy.

You'll find yourself experiencing Hallie's highs and lows and, perhaps, identify with her. What an amazing read!

Thank you #NetGalley and #Thomas & Mercer for AC!

This was another "new to me" author and I was grateful for the opportunity to find and try out a new author. I must admit, this was a very unusual and unique story with a premise that I pretty much spent most of the book trying to figure out. That's a good thing. Seriously. I do dislike it when a book is advertised as a "psychological thriller" or some such and you, as the reader, have it all figured out in the first quarter of the book.

With that being said, once I got past the 50% or 60% portion of the book - I actually did figure out "who" the bad guy was. But, in all honesty, I was still trying to figure out the exact how and the why that went along with everything.

Without going into spoilers, this book definitely contains both suspense and mystery with some fairly strong drama thrown in. The plot centers around a female MC who honestly - well, she was not very likeable. Everything starts off with the fact that she is having a pretty bad day and then to make things even worse - she tops it all off by overdosing on cocaine and dying. Literally. She dies. Her heart stops, but....... she happens to be in the middle of a ton of doctors at a medical convention, so talk about luck.

All of that is in the summary blurb, so that doesn't give anything important away and this all occurs at the very beginning of the book. What happens after that event is what keeps the story moving for the rest of the book. As I mentioned before, I really wasn't a fan of the MC -Hallie Evers. Apparently, we are told that she is extremely intelligent, even though her life to this point doesn't really reflect any of that. She's not a reliable narrator and has tended to spend a lot of her past self sabotaging. One thing that bothered me <spoiler> (it's not a big deal, but it DID bother me) was the fact that her boyfriend of 2 years breaks up with her (by text) and informs her that he's been sleeping with her roommate. So, she says she lost her job, her boyfriend and her apartment in one day. Not once after that event does she ever go back to her apartment to get any of her things. Really? Was she just going to leave all of her clothes and belongings in an apartment that is still hers, at least until the end of that month that she had already paid? Really? </spoiler> I know, I know...not really an important thing, but it annoyed me.

We follow along as Hallie starts trying to figure out exactly what happened to her. Again, I felt a lot of the events that began cascading were due to actions by Hallie that were not representative of a highly intelligent person. It reminded me again of that commercial where the people are running from the scary thing and instead of getting into the running car, they decide to enter and hide in the barn with all the torture tools. <spoiler> Really, you HAVE to go to the house on the cliff where the other woman died? In the middle of a storm? After EVERYONE tells you not to go? </spoiler>

So, would I read another book by this author? Yes, I think I would. Even though this book had moments where I wanted to bang my head against a wall, it still held my interest. The actual villain was pretty devious and the story did take some interesting twists and turns. Yes, the ending was pretty much glaring in flashing neon by the end, but it was still fun to get there.

Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. The opinions above are mine and mine alone.

This was an interesting and good book, a tad on the science fiction side, but nothing too deep. Hallie is having a heck of a bad 4th of July, she's lost her job, lost her boyfriend (to her roommate), and lost her apartment she shared with her roommate. She's at a party in Las Vegas that's on the rooftop of a building, the party is part of a conference for medical professionals, though she's not a professional, Hallie writes ads/promotional material for medical devices and was invited because of that. She had also purchased a quantity of cocaine prior to the party and does the whole bag in the washroom, she walks out, passes out and dies. Luckily for her, the room is full of doctors one of whom saves her. That is just the beginning of her troubles, she starts to have weird dreams about a woman she doesn't know and experiences she's never had. She does some investigating and discovers that the doctor her saved her is from Boston and all the the dreams and experiences take place in that area. She decides to head to Boston to talk to the doctor where she begins to peel back the layers of what has happened to her and why. Sharing that would be a bit of a spoiler so I would recommend that you read the book as it is quite good and the pages fly by. thanks to #Netgalley and #Thomas and Mercer for the ARC.

I'm a HUGE Brian Freeman fan. I have been reading all his newly released stuff and going back to catch the earlier ones, so I might be biased coming in with a real love for his writing. However, this was AMAZING. I'm definitely going to be telling everyone I know to pre-order and read it.

I Remember You is a modern-day novel that explores the theme of implanted memories, approaching the issue rather obliquely when a Las Vegas based medical device planner starts remembering things that are not her memories.