Stacy Willingham is one of my go-to thriller authors and this book captures everything I love about her writing: nuanced protagonists, gorgeous (and eerie) settings, and emotionally charged mysteries. Forget Me Not is dangerously close to being my favorite of her books. I loved how the different clues layered together in a way where by the end of the story, it felt like everything should have been so obvious. (But, because Willingham is so good at hiding things in plain sight, it wasn't.)

tl;dr add this book to your list asap.

"Forget Me Not" by Stacy Willingham is a captivating psychological thriller that grips you from the very first page and doesn’t let go until the shocking conclusion. Willingham masterfully weaves elements of suspense and intrigue throughout the narrative, expertly unraveling a complex plot filled with unexpected twists and turns.

The protagonist is both relatable and compelling, facing a series of challenges that keep readers invested in her journey. Willingham’s writing is sharp and evocative, creating a vivid sense of atmosphere that pulls you deeper into the story. The exploration of themes such as memory and identity adds an intriguing layer to the narrative, inviting reflection while maintaining relentless pacing.

Overall, "Forget Me Not" is an engaging read that showcases Stacy Willingham's talent for storytelling. This book is a must-read for fans of thrillers and psychological dramas. A big thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

At first, it feels like the story is being told in the same way more than once and I really thought we were headed into a paper thin, predictable plot. But oh, dear reader, how wrong I was. The number of times I muttered “WTF” or sat there with my jaw on the floor? Too many to count.
The last 20% of this book is absolutely phenomenal. Everything comes together quickly, maybe a little too quickly, but it’s still deeply satisfying. The twisty payoff is worth the ride.

I landed on 4 stars because the first half could’ve been tighter, and I would’ve loved a bit more depth in the final chapters. With a little editing, some trimming up front and a beefier ending, this would be an easy 5 star read for me.

This is one of the best mysteries I've read in awhile! Excellent characters, story that kept me guessing. Both sad and scary, great combination. The suspense built until I couldn't read fast enough! One of her best!

I was stressed the entire time and I loved it. I also gasped out loud twice. What else do you want out of a thriller?

While this story was good, it did not reach its full potential. There were some characters that were lightly touched on that became central to the conclusion. There were also some plot points that seemed to come out of nowhere. There were definitely some clues within that were subtle and easy to overlook that became central - great writing in these areas.

Wow! What a ride! I love a good thriller/mystery in between my romance reads, and Forget Me Not did not disappoint. So many emotions and little clues along the way, but nothing prepared me for the Marcia/Lily reveal. Well done, Stacy!

———

After 20 years, Claire gets a call from her father to subtly go home and help take care of her mother, who put her foot through a wood board. 20 years to return to the place where her sister had gone missing and presumed dead.

When Claire arrives, her mother is very closed off to any form of relationship. Claire overhears a conversation between her mother and father on the phone where she tells him she doesn’t need Claire around to babysit her.

Claire finds herself out at Galloway Farms, where her sister used to work and spend time with in the months leading to her disappearance. This is where she meets Liam, Mitchell, and Marcia.

While staying in the guest house adjacent to the main home, Claire starts to recognize similarities between her sister’s disappearance and information she’s learned about Marcia. She then finds Marcia’s old diary hidden in the air vents of her temporary home.

Through all the twists and turns, Claire struggles with the facts she’s uncovering and what she thinks happens to her sister. After plenty of digging, she finds herself sneaking out in the middle of the night to the woods at the back of the property. she finds an old camper that has her sisters necklace inside. This is her last piece of the puzzle.

In her quick haste to get away from these people and the land, Liam puts a gun to Claire’s back and locks her up in the shed. After some time, she hears footsteps and Marcia comes into view. As Claire is telling her they need to go, Mitchell and Liam come into view. And all the final pieces click together.

Liam is Mitchell and Marcia’s son.

Claire’s sister, Nathalie, is Liam’s half sister.

Who we know as Marcia throughout the book, is actually Lily.

There are bodies buried under the shed.

In order to escape, Claire kills Mitchell, and while Lily is panicking, Liam helps her escape. Together Liam and Claire go to the police in the town Marcia disappeared from, and Liam tells them everything.

I really enjoy anything written by Stacy Willingham
. They are enjoyable thrillers and quick reads. Forget Me Not was a tale of tragedy in many ways and I was outsmarted the entire time. Highly recommend for a light thriller read.

Forget Me Not is a thriller that oozes atmosphere, with a steadily building tone of menace and dread. The story starts as a slow burn, then quickly becomes a page-turner that you won’t want to put down.

The author vividly brings the primary setting to life on an isolated vineyard that drips with modern southern gothic vibes. The characters and their motivations are interesting and believable, and I especially appreciated how the unaddressed trauma of losing her sister influenced the main character’s decisions.

I enjoyed the many twists and the way the layers of secrets were revealed little by little, until everything finally came together at the conclusion. All in all, it was a thoroughly entertaining read. This was my first Stacy Willingham book, but it won’t be my last. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for the ARC.

Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham
Thriller
Pub Date: August 26, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Stacy is a must read author for me! All of her books are phenomenal reads. This one is going as one of my top thrillers of the year.

Twenty two years ago, Claire’s older sister Natalie disappeared. They found her blood in a car of a man who was arrested and put away for murder, her body was never found.
When Claire returns home, she decides to take a break from the city she ran away to. She decides to take a job at Galloway Farms where Claire worked for a while before she passed way.
She thinks that maybe immersing herself back into her old life maybe she can heal a bit. However once she starts settling in at her little cottage on the farm, she finds a diary written by the wife’s owner. At first she thinks it’s a sweet love story, but realizes shortly it’s something much more worrisome. She also starts wondering if Natalie’s disappearance may be in question again.

This was such a page turner, I couldn’t put it down! I highly recommend grabbing this one as soon as it comes out! While you wait til this one publishes go grab any of Stacy’s other books!!

What’s your favorite flowers??

Claire Campbell returns to home to rural South Carolina after losing her job as a crime reporter in NYC. She hasn't been back in 22 years after the disappearance of her older sister. Claire begins finding clues to other crimes through a job at the vineyard where her sister worked the summer of her diappearance. It's a clever mystery.

I enjoyed this, but it's a slow burn. The flashbacks via journal are a little abrupt and slow the pacing of the story. I know it's necessary to introduce all the clues and backstory, but it slowed the reading down for me. I wasn't sure I was going to continue around the 30% mark, but I'm glad that I kept going because the back half of the book was excellent.

3.5 stars
This was a very good thriller albeit I started figuring out the twists pretty early on into the book, the writing was fast paced and had me hooked. I would read another book by this author.

I was completely drawn into Forget Me Not from the very beginning. Stacy Willingham’s writing is lyrical, restrained, and eerie in the best way. There’s a hint of modern Southern gothic throughout—atmospheric but never overdone—and the tension builds so naturally in the first half of the book because of the writing style.

Claire has just lost her job in New York and doesn’t have a lot of options. When her estranged mother is injured, Claire returns home to help. But the visit is strained, and she doesn’t feel welcome. Instead, she heads to the last place she remembers feeling close to her sister Natalie—a farm in rural South Carolina, where Natalie worked before she disappeared.

As Claire settles in, she discovers an old diary belonging to someone connected to the farm—someone who may also be missing. Claire gets pulled into the mystery and starts to see some parallels between the diary's story and Natalie's story. But is she just projecting? I liked how her friend back home questioned these similarities—calling out how odd the timing was, and asking if Claire might just be seeing patterns that aren’t there. It gave the story a grounded perspective.

The pacing is slower in the beginning, which really worked for me. It matched Claire’s uncertainty and the quiet, isolated feel of the farm. Things do speed up toward the end with more plot threads to follow, but it all held together. The twists landed well, and I didn’t see them coming.

I really loved this one.

Claire Campbell is an out of work journalist who returns to her small hometown in South Carolina for the purpose of helping her mother. Instead she gets involved in trying to solve a mystery that is somehow related to her sister’s disappearance 22 years ago.

This southern mystery pulls you in from the beginning. A page turner you won’t want to put down until all the loose ends are tied up and all the secrets have been revealed. A definite must read for fans of mystery thrillers!

Thank you to St. Martins and NetGalley for the arc of this book in return for an honest review.

I love a good Stacy Willingham book! I love the dark and moody atmospheres that she is able to produce. This one fit that bill.

I found myself rather intrigued by the journal storyline, but found the modern-day plot to be a bit lacking. I wish that her job at the farm had been a bit more developed, since I think she only did one day of actual work? I honestly think this one could have done with about 100 more pages to add more plot, context and tension.

With that said, I did enjoy this one overall, and thought it was a great quick and suspenseful read. I think many people will enjoy this during the upcoming summer months!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this arc.

This was a great psychological thriller, or maybe more ‘murder mystery’ it starts with Claire, a journalist, for a newspaper that specializes in crime- can’t let the murder of her sister go. When she returns home and finds a diary at a farm where she is working for the Summer, Claire begins to piece together some weird occurrences, missing people, and a connection with her sister.

Okay, I was a little nervous about this one at first because the beginning was a bit slow, but HOLY COW. 50% on and it was wild. A total slow burn that came together perfectly.

I was soooooo nervous from the main house part on and then shit really hit the fan. I loved the diary element in the past, it really helped piece things together.

I guessed a few things and totally didn’t guess some others. Stacy Willingham does not disappoint.

Fresh out of a job and still grieving the loss of her sister, Natalie, who went missing twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell leaves New York and returns home to South Carolina, where she is confronted with unresolved questions about what really happened to her sister that fateful summer. When she decides to take a job at the local vineyard, the last place her sister ever worked, she has no idea just how many buried secrets she may unearth there.

I have zero chill when it comes to Stacy Willingham’s thrillers. The second they hit my Kindle, I am compelled to read them immediately. Although I did not love her previous book, Only If You’re Lucky, her newest did not disappoint. In fact, more than a week later, it is still living in my head, completely rent-free.

This story is incredibly haunting. The prose, atmospheric nature, dark themes, and setting all make for a really eerie backdrop within which to drop these very interesting characters. The characters themselves are fully fleshed out and could just as easily exist off the page as on; pretty scary considering one or more of them may be murderers.

Willingham keeps the reader on their toes consistently. There were so many fantastic twists and turns along the way, many of which I did not see coming. When it is over, you can look back and see the breadcrumbs missed; everything making sense when all is said and done. If I have just one small criticism, it is that the pacing was slightly wonky, with a few chapters feeling much slower than others. That said, I was able to quickly push past that issue because of how engaged I was with the overarching story.

Of note, there is one aspect of the writing itself that I am still incredibly confused about. The journal Claire finds and reads is told entirely in the 3rd person, not 1st. I have never seen that before, and I am still questioning the decision to do so.

I had originally given this book a solid 4.5 star rating rounded up, which I felt good about. But given the fact that I cannot stop thinking about the plot or characters, I had to bump it up to the full five stars.

Read if you like:
▪️domestic suspense
▪️true crime vibes
▪️family dramas
▪️southern thrillers
▪️isolated settings
▪️binge-worthy books

Thank you Minotaur Books for the advanced copy.

Forget Me Not
Stacy Willingham
Pub: 8/26/25
4.5☆

Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.

My Thoughts:
Willingham never fails to deliver on twisty, addictive thrillers, and this was no different! Forget Me Not was a little dark, a lot cult-y and wholly immersive. The pacing (even though slower at times) was well done and had the perfect suspenseful build to keep me engaged and on edge throughout. And that ending… I absolutely loved how Willingham unravels everything for us in the end.

What I loved;
✨ Southern Thriller
✨ Gripping Story
✨ Addictive/Twisty Mystery
✨ Atmospheric Setting

Mark your calendars. This is a thriller you will not want to miss. I went in totally blind and loved it. Highly suggest you do the same! This is perfect buddy read material.

Thank you so much Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Forget Me Not follows Claire Campbell, an investigative journalist whose older sister Natalie disappeared when she was eighteen. Claire lives in New York City, away from her past. Even though someone has been tried and found guilty for Natalie’s death, Claire can’t seem to let herself move forward.
A phone call from Claire’s father brings her home for the first time in years. After one unsettling night being back in her childhood home, Claire accepts a job an hour away at Galloway Farms. A muscadine vineyard in South Carolina, it is also the place where Claire’s sister Natalie spent her final summer.
Living in a cottage at Galloway Farms, Claire finds a diary that tells the story of one of the vineyard owners. A life of rebellion, love and details of past unsolved crimes.
Claire becomes obsessed about the diary as she starts to feel like everything might be tied to her sister’s disappearance.
I recommend Forget Me Not to any reader
who enjoys a thriller with a family story intertwined in it. The novel tells a story of the love between sisters and the destruction that can occur when a child disappears. Stacy Willingham’s newest thriller has a plethora of twists that keeps you interested until the end .
Thank you St. Martins Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.