Remember Me by Amy McLellan

Today it is my great pleasure to share my thoughts on Remember Me, the debut novel from Amy McLellan. I love a good psychological thriller and was drawn into this one from the very beginning. Here’s what it’s all about:

About the Book

Last night my sister was murdered. The police think I killed her. I was there. I watched the knife go in. I saw the man who did it. And heard him laugh when he said he’d never be caught. Because he knows I have prosopagnosia – I can’t recognise faces. And if I don’t find the man who killed my sister, I’ll be found guilty of murder.

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My Thoughts

From the very start of this book I found myself glued to the page. The opening chapter is shocking, tense, and leaves readers with a lot of questions that need to be answered. We are there, on that fateful night, when everything changes for the protagonist, Sarah, when she witnesses her sister’s murder. But she is not ordinary witness and getting to the root of what is was she saw will be no walk in the park for either Sarah, or the police who are investigating the murder.

Now as readers, we know something that the police don’t. Sarah is most definitely innocent. However, she makes the perfect suspect too and her perceived evasiveness, at least from the Police’s perspective, over what she saw, does nothing to ingratiate her with them. Given her medical condition, it is understandable, but is it also convenient?

Throughout the novel you can feel Sarah’s frustration and fear building. Why wouldn’t it when she can’t identify anyone, even people she knows she should probably trust. Amy McLellan has done a great job of creating that growing sense of isolation that starts clouding Sarah’s already fuzzy world, and of developing the panic. that would be inherent from every small action she has to take in a world that had previously been built around her sister, Joanna’s support.

Suspects are drip fed to readers along the way, people from Joanna’s past and present, but could any of them really have hated her enough to kill her. The more we learn of Sarah and Joanna’s past, the clearer things become, but the ultimate motive is kept hidden until nearly the end of the novel. After the very dramatic opening, the pace varies as does the level of tension. As the story builds towards a really intense conclusion, you can feel the pace picking up again, leading to a breath catching moment in which Sarah finally reveals the truth.

For a debut thriller, this one really held my attention and I am looking forward to seeing what the author has to offer us up next.

About the Author

Amy is a freelance journalist and copywriter. She lives in Shropshire with her husband, fellow author Adam Hamdy, three children and a cat. Remember Me is Amy’s debut novel, to be published by Orion (ebook November 2019, paperback April 2020).

Author Links: Twitter