Stacy Stokes

"I want to tell her that what my dad does is beautiful. I want to tell her that people go home looking like they might just float straight up to the clouds, as if the burdens they brought with them were anvils that my dad snipped away, one by one."

Lucy's dad is in the business of making people forget. At the Memory House in the tiny town of Tumble Tree in the middle of the desert, he can pull out a person's most painful memories, bringing them peace. People travel from all over, seeking his services. Lucy is proud to help run the Memory House along with her mom's best friend Vivi, who took over after Lucy's mom died in a tragic accident. Lucy cannot wait for her dad to train her to help people forget, but every time she digs into someone's memories, it doesn't seem to work quite right. She sees things inside her dad's head that she doesn't understand, like intense guilt every time he thinks of her mom.

When Lucy follows her dad and the mayor to the mines in the middle of the night, she discovers that the mayor is having her dad wipe people's memories without their permission at gunpoint, and she begins to find gaps in her own memories. She feels emotions she cannot explain, like why she feels drawn to Vivi's son Marco, and she can describe places she has no memory of having been. Something sinister is going on in their town, and Lucy and Marco are determined to find out what. But how can you solve a mystery when you can't trust your own memory?

The author is at her best when she's describing Marco and Lucy's relationship, waxing lyrical and poetic. "Our love is not just a flash of gold or a whisper of silver. Our love is the tangerine burn of a desert sunset." She uses the desert setting to great effect, bringing in the sinister side of being isolated in a small town with people you can't trust. This book plays with the concept of memories and self: who are we without our memories? And how do we redeem ourselves after bad actions? The author brings this story of betrayal and deceit to a satisfying conclusion.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (mere)