Forgotten, by Catherine McKenzie ~ Book review

Catherine McKenzie has quickly turned into one of my favorite authors.

Her latest novel, Forgotten, is a quick and easy read, a fun and slightly quirky story, and an interesting concept, all rolled into one.

Part of me doesn't want to tell you the concept, but I know if I don't you'll just pick up the book, read the back cover and see for yourself. So I'll give it to you in a lite-version.

Emma loses her mom, and finds out her mother's last wish is for her daughter to take the incredible African vacation that she never got to. While Emma struggles with this idea - this was her mother's dream, not hers - she ultimately decides to go.

Emma's feisty. She's inspired to go in what I'd say is a bit of an act of rebellion. And then she goes, and is gone a lot longer than expected. She's gone for so long that she's kind of considered missing. And then she's considered beyond missing. Emma is considered dead.

What? What the heck? Yeah, I know.

She's gone for like six months and they think she's dead?

It sounds crazy, doesn't it?

McKenzie does a fantastic job of walking us through why everyone in America (okay, everyone in America who knew Emma, anyway) thinks she's deceased. There are environmental factors and more. But she's obviously not dead - no spoiler there - she's the main character of the book! And she returns home to find her life, well, pretty much gone ... so yeah, there's that.

Emma doesn't know this yet when she returns to her apartment to find Dominic living in what she believes is still HER apartment. She doesn't know this as she tries to reach her boyfriend and her best friend (oh, how I love her best friend!).

While some twists in the story felt a little bit predictable, we definitely had suspenseful moments that led us to think - what WILL happen here? Will Emma return to her normal, everyday, pre-not quite deceased-life? Will she go back to being a full-time lawyer? Turn her world on its head and move forward from there?

As the front cover of the book asks, if you had a chance to start over, would you take it?

Should she?

There is so much depth to this story, and a little bit of a mystery that Emma gets involved with solving, as well. There is friendship, romance, sex, love, emotion, back-stabbing and a lot more.

As I've said before, Catherine McKenzie has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Her stories are fun reads, easy to escape into, and enjoyable. They're not predictable stories, they've all got twists in them, and they're fun to try to figure out. They're also easy enough to not feel pressured to get through, as you fly through over 400 pages in no time at all.

To find out more about her you can check out her Goodreads page here. I feel like I know her so I should tell you to tell her I sent you! But that might be a little bit odd. But you can certainly share this link with her as your "reference" if you'd like!

Happy reading!

Sidenote: Have you read my reviews of Catherine McKenzie's other books?

Here are the links for your reference:

Arranged

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* I received a copy of this book and cover image from HarperCollinsPublishers. The book was provided to facilitate my review and all expressed opinions are completely my own. There is an affiliate link in this post. *

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