Omg this book is such a winner! I binged in literally one sitting because I could not put it down

The author excelled in the way they created jaw dropping moments, made us question the reliability of the protagonist and built suspense as one by one people were murdered.

Honestly this book was a wild ride, it was fast paced and there was not a moment that was lacking! I am kind of sad it's over.

Highly recommend this book and will be looking to read more by this author ASAP!

Thank you Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer & Rea Fray for the ARC of this book!

EXCERPT: . . . his voice faded before he inhaled sharply, choking on his own spit. 'Is that a body?'
I nodded, curt. 'I saw it when I was rowing. It was just . . . there. Floating.'
He looked from me to the lake and back to me again. 'Are you okay? That must have been terrifying, especially after everything you've been through these last few months.'
I swallowed the last part of that sentence, burying it with all the other trauma, and focused on what was at stake now, in the moment. Suddenly, I whipped back to the lake. 'Ralph, if there's a body in our lake, then that means someone put it there.' Though it wasn't a question, he nodded, seeming to make an instantaneous judgement.
'Maybe, but we have to figure out the facts first.'
This couldn't have been an accidental drowning. Not when the body was wrapped up like that. I thought of Cottage Grove's obsession with true crime. There were thriller book clubs and 'whodunnit' crime nights, where we 'solved' cold murder cases in under three hours. We called ourselves the Murderlings. At first, I'd been hesitant to join, but once I solved my first case, I was hooked. Now with a murder in our own backyard, they were going to have a field day with this.

ABOUT 'DON'T FORGET ME': When a body is presumed to be her missing husband’s, a woman must unravel the secrets of her own past to clear her name, find the truth, and put her conscience to rest once and for all.

All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn.

First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases.

But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake.

And everyone is sure the body belongs to Tom…everyone except Ruby.

Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer. And the biggest question of all—why doesn’t she recognize the body?

MY THOUGHTS: Rea Frey has done it again! This is the second (out of three) five-star book I have read by this author. Taut, twisty and surprising.

Told in alternating timelines of 'NOW' and "THEN' with snippets from a community online chat thread interspersed, Don't Forget Me is full of secrets slowly being exposed, along with a good helping of domestic abuse, childhood trauma, a murder or three and some missing persons. I recommend you go into this cold, suspend your belief and just enjoy the fast-paced and riveting ride. Oh yes, and trust no one!

Don't Forget Me has an ending I never saw coming. It is deliciously chilling, but not as chilling as the very last line - which sent a shiver up my spine.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#DontForgetMe #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: I never thought I would become an author.
Growing up, I believed the false story that writing was a hobby; it wasn’t a job. But I’ve always liked a challenge.
Known as The Book Doula, Rea also helps other writers birth their books into the world.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Don't Forget Me by Rea Frey for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Rea Frey thank you for providing me with a most enjoyable read. I love the addition of The Murderlings club and their forum chats. Although I saw several of the twists coming from afar the specifics of them kept me nodding my head. Ruby was a fascinating character to me…carrying so very many burdens throughout her life. Her connection to Lily was a surprise and then a duplication of her own relationship with her mom. Lily was predictable to me. Cottage Grove actually served as a character with all of its small town gossip. There were so very many snippets that foretold things to come and things that had happened in the then sections.
The police department involvement was great in the beginning but then as the body count rose, seemed ineffective and somewhat unbelievable, which detracted from the momentum built before that point. There were several other questions that I felt needed explanations…top of the list why she did not recognize Tom when everyone else seemed to. Still a very enjoyable read.
Many many thanks to Rea Frey, Thomas & Mercer, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of this just published thriller. Please keep writing Rea Frey.

Don’t Forget Me started off strong right out the gate with suspense and an intriguing storyline. As the story progressed, the plots took a convoluted twist and nose dived into beyond belief territory.

The dual timelines were probably one of the most confusing elements of the story as the “then” timeline bounced around to multiple different points in time with no warning and without any inkling of chronological order, it was extremely difficult to keep facts straight. This is the kind of book you need to take notes with because it’s all over the place, and ultimately the second half could only be described as a hot mess.

I did become invested in the story and the characters. My ultimate guess at the big reveal was not correct, which does deserve merit in itself.

After finishing this book, I’m still left with so many unanswered questions and elements that just don’t make sense. I had high hopes that unfortunately ended in disappointment. Luckily it was a short read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Calling all Rea Frey fans. She has just released her very first thriller and it is going to keep you up reading into the night. Ruby finds a body in the lake near her home during her morning workout. She has already been living with the reality of a missing daughter and husband. More trauma and uncertainty is on the way when the police determine the body is her husband Tom. Now Ruby is the No. 1 suspect. Can things get any worse? Yes, they can. You will be glued to the pages as Ruby attempts to investigate in the Now timeline. In the Then timeline we relive the past with her and it is not a pretty picture. As the body count adds up, there is a race to catch a neighborhood serial killer. With so few clues, could there actually be more than one? This may be my favorite from the author to date.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a FUN read!!! Brilliantly layered plot and told in dual timelines, this one will have you racing through to the jaw-dropping end. Heads up, the devil is well and truly in the detail with this one!!

I’m not going to give much away - this one is best gone into blind. What I will say is, I loved the complex characters, and I loved how our MC was potentially unreliable… (was she…? Well you’ll need to read it to find out…!) Also, the forum chapters were great. This element really immerses you in the storyline.

Also, can we give Daisy her own story please? I loved this character and her and her true crime group, the “Murderlings” need their own book. Pretty please 🙏🏻

Off to check out Frey’s backlist!!

Thank you Thriller Book Lovers Promotions for the opportunity to read and provide a voluntary review. 4.5 stars rounded up.

Don't Forget Me by Rea Frey is a thrilling suspense story.
This book is chilling and captivating—a wild murder mystery with family drama added. It was unputdownable in my opinion.
The book's atmospheric setting and well-developed characters create an immersive reading experience that will keep readers eagerly turning pages. Frey skillfully builds tension and suspense, leading readers down a path of discovery where nothing is as it seems.

Thank You NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Another fabulous read from Rea Frey! She writes SUCH brilliantly complex, compelling characters. I had no idea who the killer was until the very end. I found myself with guess after guess that was proven wrong.

The quick paced, short chapters and the dual timeline had me invested from the start, eager to keep reading long after bedtime. I loved the addition of the forum, and the twists toward the end were nothing short of brilliance.

Ruby moves to a new house in a fancy neighborhood, hoping for a fresh start. But first her daughter (Lily) and then her husband (Tom) disappear. When Ruby finds a corpse in the lake, everyone is certain it’s Tom, but Ruby is unconvinced. She does a lot of snooping around and enlists the help of her new friends in the neighborhood’s murder-solving club (!!) to unravel the truth of her own past and to find out what happened to her family.

This was fast-paced with lots of surprises along the way! Check this one out if you like books with:

🔍 armchair sleuths
👥 multiple suspects
☠️ multiple murders
🏡 neighborhood drama
🤥 unreliable narrators
⌛️ lost time/lost memories
🌪️ wild twists

Ruby is a woman dealing with grief. First her daughter Lily goes missing and then her husband. To keep herself busy she joins the “Murderlings” a neighborhood group that gets together to solve m*rders. When she finds a body in the nearby lake everyone is convinced it’s her husband Tom, but Ruby doesn’t think so.

This was a combo audio/kindle read for me for the simple reason that the audio wasn’t fast enough! What happened to Lily? Is the body in the lake Tom? I simply HAD to find out what in the world was going on RIGHT. NOW! I love dual timelines and Don’t Forget Me has that in spades as well as non linear storytelling which was easy to follow. Ruby is a captivating if unreliable narrator. She has memory gaps and has had them since she was young; she dissociates. The secrets of her past are slowly revealed while in the present she scrambles to figure out who is killing off her neighbors one by one. Yes, more bodies are found!

My only qualm is that there are some unanswered questions and areas that I wish had been explored further. Then again maybe the ambiguity is the point? Is there even more to the story that what has been explicitly revealed? I’d like to think so.

The audio was fantastic and Rachel L. Jacob’s was a pleasure to listen to. She captured emotions perfectly and I enjoyed the community forum excepts when listening. When reading the neighborhood texts, it didn’t add as much and I could’ve done without it.

I won’t hesitate to grab another thriller by Rea Frey! This was a mind bender of a read with some twists that took me by surprise! I did succeed in identifying the killer. I think? I’m still pondering that ending. . .

Thank you Rea Frey, Thriller Book Lovers Promotions, Thomas & Mercer, Brilliance Publishing and NetGalley for my gifted audio copy. All opinions are my own.

Tropes: Serial Killer on loose, mental health rep, Gruesome deaths/ Murder, Shocking truths, Dual Timelines & Twists and Turns

The book is intense and dark. This is a kind of book where you cannot predict anything and the more you will read, the more it will grip you. And each character has a secret. So many unthinkable things happens in the plot. So many secrets and so many twists. And talk about terrifying murders and complex relationships. It was all like a deceiving web and someone is trying to frame Ruby in the murder of her husband and neighbours. The ending was so shocking.

Ruby finds a body in the surface of the lake. She calls the police while somehow she becomes a primary suspect as the body is presumed to be of Tom, her missing husband who is found in an unrecognisable condition. While the book has been narrated in dual timeline; past and present. After an unfortunate murder, the revelation of Tom’s and Ruby marriage comes on surface too. While one of her neighbour reveals something but soon she is found dead too with a slit throat, the two of them seem to be connected. Ryan and Greg were on her side.

Ruby’s past was touching and the revelation of their marriage was shocking. Tom was harbouring his own secrets too. Lily disappears too. In the present day, the series of unfortunate events doesn’t stop. Ryan is found dead too and the killer is on loose, the killer must be found to stop them for hurting anyone else.

Many Thanks to Netgalley, Author, & Publisher.

I liked this one but didn't love it. It had me fooled for a while, thinking I knew who the killer was. That kept me hooked for a while but ultimately, the author added some extra murders that felt quite unnecessary and moved slowly through the main character's back story. I ended up guessing who the killer was and just felt like it could have been over sooner. I'm a fan of twisty thrillers, so am willing to check out more by the author in the future. Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC!

3.5 stars
Don’t Forget Me, by Rea Frey, is a decent domestic thriller/murder mystery.
The story is narrated in first person POV by protagonist Ruby, a middle-aged, recently “retired” trauma nurse. She, lawyer husband Tom, and her mentally fragile, teenage stepdaughter live in a newly developed, upscale, planned community near Nashville, Tennessee. Cottage Grove may look perfect, but its residents participate in gossipy online forums and even have a
true-crime discussion group called the Murderlings!
When a dead body surfaces in the community’s lake, and Ruby discovers it, the hunt for the identity of the victim and circumstances of the death begins.
The story moves from present to past, but in an unpredictable choppy manner; while some of the truly “past” events are from Ruby’s childhood, other references are to much more recent events. The timelines seemed jumbled.
I did like Ruby’s character, who struggled with unhappy childhood memories and with her adult mistakes. Most of the other characters were thin and not likeable. The inter-chapter excerpts from the “Cottage Grove Forum” were meant to show the mean-spirited, nosy neighbors’ thoughts, but did nothing to move the plot forward.
I wish the writing and the plotting was more organized, as this novel started strong, but did not hold together to the end. It had a very good premise, and it could have been so much more.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

I’ve read many of Rea Frey’s books and loved them so I was very excited to read her latest. This book did not disappoint. It is told in the Now and Then with the center being around Ruby finding a body in the lake. The writing is so good and the author gives tidbits of information just at the right time. I also loved how this book had a neighborhood crime night where they tried to solve made up crimes (or not so made up!). This is a book that will keep you reading way past bedtime!

Taking an early retirement, Ruby moves with her husband Tom and daughter Lily to a tight-knit lakeside community, where she will be a stay-at-home mom as Lily finishes high school. Bored, she turns to her new neighbors as a way to find new hobbies, and one of the ones she really enjoys is a murder club where they try to solve cold cases. Just when she is beginning to find her place, her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Weeks later, Ruby is out rowing on the lake and a body floats up to the surface. Ruby doesn't recognize the person, but everyone else that the police interviewed say the body is Ruby's husband, Tom. Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer.
As more bodies begin to be discovered, murdered in the same way as Tom, it looks as if there is a serial killer living among them.

This book was SO good. I did not want to put it down. This was a bit different than this author's usual books in that the book was a psychological thriller however, she excelled at the genre. The story is told in alternating timelines between then and now, with a generous dose of screenshots from the local neighborhood gossip forum (which was quite entertaining and entirely relatable). This will keep you guessing right up to the end. If you are a fan of thrillers then this needs to be at the top of your TBR pile. You are going to love it!

Ruby and Tom and daughter lily moved to a newly built community by a lake. Ruby just went along with Tom on location, design and everything else. Her only focus was to protect and nurture Lily, who besides being a clever student had frailties of her own, which Tom refused to acknowledge.

Fast forward and Lily goes missing. Followed by Tom going missing. When Tom’s body is found floating on the lake, suspicion focuses on Ruby. She doesn’t identify the body as Tom, but all her neighbours do.

Is Ruby in a fugue state not able to acknowledge what is in front of her. When one and then another neighbour is found murdered, the focus switches solely on Ruby. Even at that moment three quarter into the story, one would go with the theory that Ruby kills these people while in some state, which blocks her remembering what she has done.

The final denouement is shocking and frightening and a surprise. The dual timelines, the uncertainty of Ruby, the changing face of the immediate characters all created a puzzle.

Prolific American author Rea Frey’s latest crime fiction thriller, Don't Forget Me (2024) is an enjoyable murder mystery. Recently separated and living alone in the family home, Ruby is out rowing early one morning when she discovers a body floating in the lake. The Cottage Grove locals are quick to identify it as Ruby’s former husband but she denies it's him. As the police investigation begins, they discover Ruby’s daughter has also left home and the strange circumstances of her parent’s deaths. Then the local gossip rumour mill is quick to accuse Ruby of the murder and so she delves into the neighbours to try and find out exactly what happened, stirring up trouble and discovering lots of secrets. A rising body count and local secrets combine to form an intriguing murderer reveal that is a four stars read rating. With thanks to Thomas & Mercer and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without inducement.

I am not quite sure about this one. Ruby moves to new neighborhood and right away her daughter and her husband disappear. Ruby admits she has no female friendships because she "doesn't do gossip" and after that I was like "you probably deserve what's coming." which did not make me a sympathetic reader at all.
This is okay but I really do not like Ruby.

I’d like to thank Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Don’t Forget Me’ written by Rea Frey in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Ruby Knight is on an early morning row at the lake near to her home in Cottage Grove when she finds a body that has floated to the surface. Detective Ellis arrives and asks if the body could be that of her missing husband Tom as all of the neighbours say it is although Ruby doesn’t recognise him. As Detective Ellis continues to question her, Ruby is convinced someone is trying to set her up as a murderer but she has no idea why.

‘Don’t Forget Me’ is a dark mystery thriller of family secrets, domestic violence and the effect it has on other members of the family. It covers the timespan of what happened in Ruby’s past to the present time and is told through her eyes with additional social media comments from the Cottage Grove Forum. I’ve been so engrossed by the story and what happens behind closed doors that I’ve been unable to stop reading and finished the book in less than twenty-four hours. It’s deep and poignant, is very well-written and totally gripping with characters that are described to perfection. There’s drama, tension and suspense but when I got towards the last chapters I was completely shocked by an outcome that I would never have guessed in a million years. This is the first novel I’ve read by Rea Frey and I’ve enjoyed it so much I’ll be looking out for more by her.

3,5 ⭐
This book is one fast and dangerous rollercoaster ride from start to finish. It starts with Ruby finding a body during her morning row. Everyone says it's her missing husband Tom, but why doesn't she recognise him? And who killed him?

The story is told in now and then chapters. We gradually learn what's happened in the past and how it affects the present. There are tons of secrets and twists, maybe even too many, if that is possible. I managed to guess the killer, but not the motivation. I also guessed many of the twists, but it did not hinder my reading experience. The pace is very fast and I just had to keep turning the pages to get to the end. I really, really liked the writing style. This is one of those books that could have been longer in order to tie in all the loose ends that left me wondering in the end. None of the characters were very likable, but I don't mind that in my thrillers. In fact the more nasty the better.