Everything She Forgot

When school teacher Margaret Holloway, the heroine of this absorbing psychological thriller from Edgar-finalist Ballantyne (The Guilty One), gets caught in a horrific traffic accident on a London motorway during a blizzard in December 2013, a mysterious disfigured man rescues her from her car. Increasingly obsessed about a dark time in her childhood that she seems to have blocked out, Margaret soon discovers that the man who rescued her is now in a coma, and her growing unease is beginning to affect her family and her teaching career. In flashbacks to 1985, the youngest son of a murderous crime family desperately attempts to reconnect with his seven-year-old daughter as he seeks a new, more honest life, while a small-time journalist sinks his teeth into the disappearance of a child. Ballantyne weaves a fine tale of family drama, dark secrets, and the past’s effect on the present. The threads seamlessly come together in a heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, finale. [em]Agent: Nicola Barr, Greene & Heaton (U.K.). (Oct.) [/em]