Henry lives on the edge of the woods with his ailing mother and overbearing stepfather. Unbeknownst to him, Henry's mother has taken to feeding a wild girl, who comes to the edge of their property for the meals that are left on a tray. Though his stepfather is against helping someone who may be dangerous, both Henry and his mother take the young woman under their wing. Will Eve bring forth trouble that has the power to destroy all of their lives?

Between a sick mother, unpredictable girl, family trouble, and a criminal element lurking in the distance, The Unremembered Girl is a jumbled mess. Many of the characters were stereotypical, caricatures of individuals that one might find in the setting of a novel such as this one. As the author traveled down this predictable path, all I could think was how disappointed I was with the turn of events. There was a real opportunity to provide a story about a young man, who follows his mom's wishes to help a young girl, though many would write her off as undeserving. Overall, The Unremembered Girl was a miss for me and not a novel I would recommend to others.

Disclaimer: I had the opportunity to read an electronic version of The Unremembered Girl. The choice to review this novel was entirely my own.

This is a well written and thoughtful novel. The characters are good and the storytelling easy to follow. A good read.

I had a hard time finishing The Unremembered Girl. I didn't care for any of the characters.

Henry sells bootleg liquor to support his family in deep woods of East Texas. His compassionate mother is dying of cancer and his step father is detached from reality as he is a grassroots minister whose pulpit is the top of a trash can as he screams out sermons to all who pass by. A half feral girl in the woods watches the family and wishes for one for herself. The mother tempts her out with food and brings her into the house as a way to make up for the death of her daughter. She said she couldn't save her daughter so she'll save another girl. I honestly don't see how bringing a person such as this into your house would work out well. She barely talks or interacts at first and life skills, not so much. The girl needs counseling and to be slowly reintegrated into society. She becomes co-dependent upon Henry who talks to her and treats her nice. There is a mystery that surrounds her and what her back story is. Are any in Henry's family or these backwoods people involved in what happened to the girl with no name? She is a broken woman. Can she get the help she needs before she drags Henry down with her in the spiral of despair and negativity?
Pub Date 01 Nov 2017
Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a review copy . I was not required to write a positive review.

I expected more from this book. Abused young lady taken in by a family and the effects of this. Story was a bit long and dragged in places. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book

The unremembered girl by eliza Maxwell.
In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods. Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.
A fantastic read with great characters. Eve was so eerie. A jawdropping read. 5*.

Unfortunately, I did not like this book at all. The characters were pretty miserable and unbelievable; the story tragic and not only unbelievable but also tragically slow moving. I forced myself to finish it. Sorry. Very disappointing and definitely just not my cup of tea.

A gritty southern gothic with strong characters, although sometimes slipping into melodrama. I wish we got to see inside Eve's head a bit more instead of just witnessing her actions through the eyes of the men around her. Regardless, I think this author is one to watch in the future.

No. Just no.

Maybe it's my own fault for not recognizing the "[x person] is ~BROKEN~! The valiant hero must ~fix~ them!" vibes from the summary, because I despise these stories. And this was one such story. This wasn't a love story or a hopeful story or a tragic story, it was aggravating and uninteresting, at least to me. I came very close to DNFing it, but I persevered, and sadly I can't say that my efforts were rewarded at all.

Really enjoyed this story! Well written! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

The plot was a hit and miss for me, and the characters were two dimensional.

Not normally my type of read, very dark and haunting , but the Author can write! Well written plot with deep characters

This may have been one of the hardest reads I have ever done. It sure had lots of emotion. Lots of things going on. It had tragedy, love, loss, sadness, humor(a bit), cruelty, just to name a few.
I cried reading this story so much that right now my eyes are burning. The last part was just so sad and I do think Henry cared. I think he loved Eve with all of his heart. He wanted to bad to fix her. He didn’t want her to be broken. He wanted them to be a family.
Yes he made mistakes but isn’t that what makes us human? Yes he did pay a high price but at some points don’t we all? I truly think we do. I think Henry loved Eve and Eve loved Henry. She went through to much trauma to ever get over it. Even possibly with professional help she may have remained the broken girl she was born to be. He life was a tragedy from day one. I felt so sorry for her. I felt so sorry for Henry and even for Del and Alice.
All of their lives were changed because of the cruel meanness that is in some people. To buy and sell lives is beyond contemptible. Human trafficking is something that is real. It exists and needs to be stopped. In the end Del tried. He tried to do the right thing. Henry tried to do the right thing too. Life is hard at times and when things happen that we have no control over, no voice, no objection too, it’s way harder. We all have the right to say NO! No one has the right to do things to us that we don’t want. Humans are cruel people at times and at the same time can be the most kind hearted, caring, loving you ever see. It’s what makes us human. It’s what makes up this world.
This book touched a part of me that I can not explain. Deep in my soul. In my heart. I feel for people who have no voice to be heard. I wish everyone who read this would get the same message out of it that I did. Life would sure be a lot easier for the ones we hurt or ones who are hurt by others.
I reacieved a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I gave it 4 stars. Would have been 5 but it hurt my heart to much. Maybe that is not a good reason but it’s all I have. Thank you for the honor of reading this story. I won’t soon be forgetting it that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, the pace of this book was not smooth, seeming to bounce from place to place. The dysfunctional family characters are one-dimensional and not explored. The feral girl in the woods is intriguing, but, as I said, the writing is disjointed and not engaging. Only my opinion.

"In this place, it was easy to forget that the world had turned the corner into the twenty-first century. Time was different here, as if a spell had been cast that slowed the revolution of the earth. Those who lived and died nearby were touched by it, carrying the traces on their fingertips, in their lungs, woven through their hair. It was inescapable."

It is here, in the deep forests of East Texas that Henry lives with his parents. They still live in the cabin where he grew up. The  difference is that he and his parents have switched roles and Henry is now the breadwinner. His bootlegging business won't make them rich, but they have enough to scrape by.

When a ragged, dirty young woman emerges from the woods, Henry isn't sure what to think, but his mother immediately senses something about the girl and takes her in.

That one simple act of kindness has a profound effect on Henry’s entire family and their lives will never be the same.

Rife with tragedy, both past and present, and filled with more secrets than the entire US Government, this book will draw and hold your attention for its entirety.

Author Eliza Maxwell's descriptions are so wonderfully vivid that I felt as though I was immersed in each and every scene. I was entranced, and despite the fact that it was 3am, I couldn't put the book down even though I knew I would suffer from lack of sleep the next morning.

Don't believe me? Read the following:

"The tall, stately pines that grew in drier soils soon gave way to the curving, dripping beauty of the cypress that thrived in the swamp. The ground sloped downward, giving a body the subtle sense of being pulled into the bottomlands that waited patiently just around the corners, where the dark heart of the marsh beat with a symphony of life. Stinging, singing, ancient, and deadly life, where the alligators were king, the snakes and snapping turtles were barons, and the woodpeckers were court jesters jangling their bells from the tops of the trees."

Eliza Maxwell clearly has a gift for descriptive setting and, as if this were not enough, she also has the talent of perfect pacing. Filled with moments of heart-breaking tenderness, and others of extreme terror, this book is impossible to put down.

Filled with realistic characters and so many surprising twists and turns that readers will be thinking about this book long after finishing the final page.

I rate this book as 5 out of 5 Stars   🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book.

I do not even know how to express how I feel about this book. Basically, it was a look at several lives and how bad things happen to good people and the fact that you are a good person doing something for a good reason doesn't protect you from bad things. Eve, an abused girl, finds herself brought into a dysfunctional family: mother dying of cancer, fanatical preacher father, and Henry, a young man trying to be there for everyone else. Sprinkle in some human trafficking and a little local corruption to create a story where you know there will be sadness and loss before the end. Ms. Maxwell has created complex characters whose imperfections make the story that much more heart wrenching.

This book contains many scenes that will cause heart break but rays of sunshine peek through to bring some happiness at the end.

I don't even know where to start with my review of this book! The characters are complex and there are some to love and some to hate. The focus of the book is primarily on Henry and Eve. Henry and Eve has a connection and while they not admit it, everyone else can see they have a love connection. However, Eve has quite the troubled past and is found much like a feral animal. She is dirty and does not know how to interact with people, nor is she able to read or write. Henry and his family change all of that for Eve, but is it enough? Can she get past what she has endured?

Caroline, Henry's mother, is one of those women that can bring some peace and harmony to a crazy family. I considered her something of a saint for what she had to deal with each day, especially with Livingston, her husband, which was quite the task as he is an Evangelical minister and preached hell fire and brimstone to those that would listen. The family is very dysfunctional to say the least but it is what they know. There are several other characters that round out the book and make it interesting.

This book is not for the faint of heart and might be considered dark by some - it will touch topics such as trafficking, rape and murder. However, I thought it shed light on different scenarios that many of us do not know occur or maybe don't wish to know happen as they are not pleasant. There were some heart stopping moments near the end that will make you stop and think about why someone would do such a thing to another human being.

If I had one word to summarize the overriding theme of The Unremembered Girl by Eliza Maxwell it would be sacrifice. If I had one word to describe the creativity of this story and the beautiful way in which it was told, I wouldn't be able to do it because it is worthy of so much more than one word.

The Unremembered Girl starts off with a preview of a future dark, yet sacrificial activity involving the main character, Henry. The introduction creates a bit of confusion, but with her enchanting and captivating writing, Maxwell quickly draws the reader into this story setting the foundation for a suspense-filled novel. This piece of fiction covers a lot of ground including human trafficking, rape, cancer, death, infertility, grief, guilt, and more.

Henry is tasked with doing the right thing for Eve, a stranger his mother rescued for the back woods of east Texas. Like most real-life families, there’s a bit of dysfunction involving the secondary characters of Henry’s stepfather, stepbrother, and his stepsister-in-law. Maxwell portrays Henry as a most sympathetic protagonist, so much so that even when he commits seemingly amoral acts, you as the reader, still root for him to win. The story is very easy to follow, and even with so many complex topics being presented, the overall pace of it is rather fast. No spoilers, but the ending will leave you with a myriad of feelings that will have you thinking about the characters long after you’ve turned the last page.

Recommendation: Do something nice for yourself today: Get a copy of this book, and carve out some time to indulge yourself. You won't need much because it is a quick read. This slow reader was able to finish it in 3 days.

"Now, there was only Eve. Broken, broken Eve. The girl with no name."

I usually don't read a lot of books outside the romance/paranormal genre, however every now and then I do. What made me pick up The Unremembered Girl was the intriguing and mysterious vibe I got from the blurb. I love books focusing on small town families, and the not knowing which direction the author will take with the characters and story. This book focuses mainly on Henry, who kind of paused his life to take care of his sick mother, Caroline. The feral girl Eve had been watching them from the woods, and longs to be a part of their family. When she makes herself known, Caroline opens up her home to Eve. I had no idea how Eve would react to everything, she was very traumatized and didn't act normal at all. The others don't think it's a good idea to take this unknown girl in their home. However, it seems like day by day she bonds the strongest with Henry, but not in a healthy way.

"That girl's broken, Henry. She's broken and she's dangerous. And if you think you can fix her, I'm afraid you're destined for heartache, my dear."

This book was very unpredictable. I had no idea what would happen and how Eve would act in certain situations. I was so not ready for the things that happened. The author did an incredible job in shocking and creating mixed emotions in me. I just didn't know how to feel about Eve, she was just such a broken character and I can't imagine half of what she went through in her past. I absolutely loved the multiple POVs because it added additional layers, and different perspectives to the story. The last 10% of the book was just brutal and put me through a whirlwind of emotions. Everything happened so fast and I just couldn't contain my tears. The Unremembered Girl was such an unique and emotional story, and it had me hooked from beginning until the end. The story had a great flow and the writing was easy to read. I am definitely looking forward to reading Eliza's other books.