Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Forget me not by Stacy Willingham is a thriller on slow burn. When Claire loses her job as a journalist and decides to try and make it on her own freelancing, she wasn’t prepared for the feelings of total failure she would soon develop. So when she is suddenly asked to head back home following an accident, she takes the chance to clear her head. She soon also realizes, with her friend’s help, that the trip could also help her come to terms with her sister’s death 22 years before. But nothing could have prepared her for the truth she would ultimately uncover. Through several twists, the author, paints the picture of a pure dysfunctional “cult” that her sister seemingly was part of for a short time. Discovering an old journal in the cabin she lived in when offered a job on a vineyard, she slowly unravels not only the story of her sister’s disappearance but also cracks the case on several more decades old unsolved mysteries. Overall, a great read I’d recommend to others.

After reading Stacy Willingham’s other novels, I was extremely excited to receive an ARC of her upcoming release. Overall, I really liked the story and appreciated how everything played out.

I feel like it took me a bit longer to get into the story because it is very much a slow burn thriller. The story starts with Claire Campbell, an out of work journalist who returns to her southern small town to help her mom. In her childhood, Claire’s sister Natalie goes missing and is presumed dead. After finding some pictures of Natalie at her childhood home, Claire decides to visit Galloway farm. She then ends up staying/ working there, and stumbles into a mystery that she can’t resist digging into.

This story does utilize a dual timeline, via a journal, to help accentuate the plot but I also feel like there was a lot of time where the story was not progressing. The creep factor was present, but not deeper than surface level. And the mystery felt predictable about halfway through.

I do feel like it’s worth the read, but perhaps not a favorite by this author. Forget Me Not releases August 26, 2025.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press (via Netgalley) for gifting me with an eARC, all thoughts expressed are my own.

Such a great suspense thriller spanning decades. I loved how the main character, Claire, unwind, not only the story of her sister's disappearance, but several other mysteries, all intertwined in a fast paced page turner!

“Forget Me Not” is a fast paced and mysterious thriller! Our FMC, Claire, has avoided going home for 22 YEARS. When she was a young teen, her sister had gone missing and presumed murdered by her boyfriend. The heartbreak surrounding this, including her parents divorce, kept her away from her hometown. Our story begins with Claire’s mother having an injury, and Claire decides to go home to help her. Upon arrival, she is offered a summer job at Galloway Garden…. Which just so happened to be the last place her sister worked before her disappearance. Claire begins to find clues, and realizes that there is more then meets the eye surrounding her sisters disappearance.

Stacy Willingham has a great talent for really putting the reader right in the middle of the story with her descriptions and atmospheric setting. So intricate and detailed, I really enjoyed it! Thank you so much to NetGalley and publisher for the ARC!!

This was a fantastic new book by Willingham. I loved A Flicker in the Dark and I'm happy to say this new novel reminded me why I enjoyed her writing so much. This is a suspenseful mysterious story with strong characters and so many twists and turns. I really enjoyed this story and found myself quickly turning the pages. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5 ⭐️ I have read every Stacy Willingham book so I was super excited for this one but unfortunately it just didn’t hit the mark for me. The story was good, it just wasn’t a page turner and didn’t have me excited to see what the outcome was.

Claire finds herself unemployed and unsure of what her next move is when she receives a call from her dad, asking her to return to her hometown in order to help out her mother whom she hasn’t spoken to for quite some time. Claire heads back to South Carolina for the first time since she moved to New York and once back at her childhood home, the memory of her sisters disappearance comes back to haunt her and she tries to talk to her mom about it but her mother doesn’t want to discuss it so they have a falling out and Claire leaves. Claire decides to look in to her sisters disappearance further and ends up at the vineyard where her sister worked the summer before she vanished. Claire ends up accepting a job and living in the guest house at the vineyard where she stumbles across a diary that is very old. Claire soon realizes that the story told in the diary is somewhat similar to her sisters disappearance and that makes Claire even more determined to solve not only her sisters cold case, but that of the woman that wrote the diary.


This book publishes on August 26, 2025.

hank you, St. Martin’s Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Claire Campbell returns to her home town in South Carolina for the first time in over two decades. After a disastrous visit with her mother, Claire decides to retrace the steps of her missing sister, Natalie. Claire makes her way to Galloway Farms, the place Natalie worked the summer she disappeared. When Claire decides to take a job as a farm hand for the summer, the pieces of Natalie's disappearance start to finally get put together, but will the truth cost Claire her own life?

Stacy Willingham consistently wows me with her writing, unique plots, and a few twists actually surprise me. Forget Me Not is no exception. This book is paced perfectly to feel the urgency and tension, and with just enough history and secrecy revealed each chapter that keep you guessing but not rolling your eyes at "of course" moments. Willingham manages to leave enough clues to get you most of the way to the answer without the story feeling spoiled because she's always got at least one trick up her sleeve that ties it all together. As someone who reads a lot of thrillers; it's a delight to find something that manages to surprise me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Such a great book. Thank you for letting me read this in advance. I was hooked from the start and couldn't stop reading it.

This book starts off a bit slow, but honestly, I think it was totally necessary to set the stage. We really get a chance to meet and understand each character, with even more intriguing ones introduced through flashbacks as the story unfolds. I absolutely loved Claire — her determination to uncover the truth about what happened to her sister had me hooked. The locked-door mystery vibe mixed with that haunting feeling of returning home made it impossible to put down. As the plot thickened, the writing picked up speed, and I was fully along for the ride. I loved how the story wove between past and present, and those twists? I never saw them coming!


Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed this book and didn’t see the twist coming! The only reason I have 4 stars instead of 5 is I felt like the beginning of the book was slow and I wasn’t very interested in the plot at the beginning

Loved this southern cult-vibe thriller. The southern grape farm set the scene well. I enjoyed the dual timeline where we got to unravel the past mystery through a diary. It took a little bit to get hooked and some of the twists were predictable. But overall it was entertaining!

I enjoyed this twisty tale from Stacy Willingham! The pacing was strong, and the plot was well developed. There was no shortage of seedy characters which added to the guessing game of who is the villain? I actually did NOT figure it out like I thought I had so kudos to Stacy for fooling me! I loved how it all came together. The ending was perfection.

BIG THANK YOU TO ST. MARTIN’S PRESS AND NETGALLEY FOR THIS ARC! <3

Stacy Willingham is an auto buy author for me so I was so excited when I got approved for this arc! I was pretty much nerding out. This is the perfect southern dark thriller that I love. It just has that vibe too it. You feel it pretty quickly. I pretty much read this book in one day, I couldn’t put it down!

This is the kind of thriller that creeps up on you like…like a peaceful summer job picking grapes turns into you realizing you have to pick the whole vineyard by yourself.
Claire Campbell’s sister disappeared over twenty years ago. It’s something that has shaped Claire’s life ever since, and a big reason why she escaped to live her life in New York City. Returning to South Carolina for a visit, she finds herself drawn to a vineyard where her sister worked on that last fateful summer. Securing a live-in job there is a mix of escape from the city and spending time with a sister who is now unreachable.
Things start off slowly. Digging up the past isn’t easy, even for a journalist. But eventually all of Claire’s misgivings become real, urgent danger.
I’ve read enough of Stacy Willingham’s other novels to be excited for this one. I’ll admit, the setup got me thinking this might be a one-off. But it’s not. The setup is worth it in the end. Five Stars.

I was probably 70% of the way through before it hit me - "This is a locked door thriller I don't hate!" Not that I hate all of them, but they can rub me the wrong way. This one was - and it wasn't - a locked door, and I really like the way Willingham used the wide open setting/space as a...trap.

Twisty, turny, creepy, and fun - I raced through to the end dying to know the outcome. Very fun read.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of this title. I get a special thrill from reading books before they've really hit the shelves!

A southern suspense novel with the perfect mysterious ambience.

This newest murder mystery from Stacy Willingham has a myriad of intriguing twists and turns. A few of them I saw coming but the rest had me flabbergasted.

Another chilling factor for me was how the story was reminiscent of cults like the manson family.

I adored 'A Flicker in the Dark' like I’ve already mentioned on here and I’m ecstatic I got to read Willingham's newest thriller early.

Claire has been troubled by her sister’s disappearance for the past 20 years. Forced to return to her home town to care for her mother she sets out to find the truth. Forget Me Not is a quick read that will keep you up at night to find out what really happened.

Wow - just Wow! Forget me Not is soo good! Claire is a investigative reporter who lives in New York City. She recently left her job and has been lost. Claire gets a call from her Dad asking her to come help take care of her Mom back down south. Claire hasn't been home since she left when she graduated high school due to her older sister Natalie disappearing. Claire and family never really had answers if Natalie was truly dead or not but the police believed they had found her murderer and locked him up. Claire is apprehensive about going back home but her friend Ryan convinces her to give it a go. Claire goes home but ends up going and taking a job at the local winery to make some money, escape and take in the last place she ever saw her sister. Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for the opportunity to read this book. Stacy Willingham wrote another amazing story.

In Forget Me Not, Stacy Willingham delivers a haunting Southern thriller about family secrets and long-lost truths. When Claire Campbell returns home to investigate her sister’s decades-old disappearance, she uncovers dark secrets that blur the line between past and present. Atmospheric, gripping, and full of slow-burn suspense.

Stacy Willingham does not disappoint with her new thriller! Forget Me Not follows Claire, a New Yorker reluctantly returning to her small southern town to take care of her ailing mother. Claire hasn’t been home since graduating high school. After her sister disappeared over twenty years ago, she’s worked hard to put it behind her and move on. However, returning home stirs up old ghosts. After visiting the rural farm where her sister had worked the summer she disappeared, Claire takes a job on a whim and moves in. And so begins an atmospheric story involving a found diary, a mysterious caretaker, and a lot of strange happenings.

This story has it all – suspense, twists and turns, and beautiful writing. The novel has a dual timeline so you get to fully immerse yourself in the present as well as the past. All questions are answered by the end, but I didn’t see all of those answers coming which made me love this book even more. I truly felt like I was on that farm, sweating in the summer heat and having my heart race with palpable suspense at various times throughout the novel. To say any more would give too much away. A must-read for fans of this genre.