When Estelle Paradise wakes up, she finds herself in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there.  The doctors tell her she’s been in a car accident.  And she’s been shot.  And her daughter, Mia, is missing.  Nothing makes sense and nothing adds up.

In an effort to keep her out of prison (and possibly save his own reputation), her husband has her admitted to a psychiatric hospital where Estelle struggles to try and figure out the truth of what happened to her and her little girl.

At first, all she remembers is the crying.  Mia cried (or cries) a lot and Estelle was struggling to cope.  Her husband relocated for work and she moved into a new home in an effort to save them money.  It is entirely possible it all became too much for her. Slowly, though, with the help of her doctor, memories start to come back and, it seems, Estelle might not be as guilty as everyone thinks after all.

To a degree, I can’t say I cared too much – because I just couldn’t warm to Estelle.  I wanted to.  In fact, I needed to because she was the only constant through the book and this was her story, but it just wasn’t happening for me.  It is a shame really but not every reader can like every character so I wouldn’t not recommend reading it because of this because there are a lot of positives.

Alexandra Burt does a great job of leaving you guessing through most of the book (which is quite long at just over 450 pages) just what has happened to Mia and just what Estelle’s role in it is.  The ending has a clever twist, though it does meander a bit too much at the point it’s revealed.  That said, this is a debut novel, and so I can forgive this because I thought it was well written and clever.  I just wish I could have liked Estelle as it means I liked vs. loved this book.

Have you read it – what did you think of Estelle?

Emma

p.s. this has also been released as Remember Mia