She’s Not There by PJ Parrish

384 Pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Release Date: September 8, 2023

Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Mystery, Thriller, Amnesia

Amelia Tobias wakes up in the hospital after a car accident in Fort Lauderdale. She does not have any real memory except her first name. She remembers a man at the accident but since she cannot remember anything else, she does not know if it was her husband. She escapes the hospital, pawns her ring, and takes the first bus out of town. With no one to trust, she goes on the run. She arrives in Brunswick, Georgia and gets off the bus. She eats in a diner and asks the waitress for recommendations on a hotel. Since it is a small town, the only option is a rooming house. Her husband, Alex, hires a private detective/skip tracer to find her. She remembers her dog and calls the pet spa. That is the mistake the detective needs to find her. Now she is running again.

The book has a very fast pace, the characters are very developed, and it is written in the third person point of view. This is great mystery with strong women characters.

Yes yes YES this is what I love in a thriller that it’s....

Thrilling
Intriguing
Keeps you up all night
Keeps you reading and focusing on just this no matter what’s going on around you.

Being in lockdown is painful, trying to find a spot where my family leave me to read.....well I could be in the middle of the busiest Town Centre and you couldn’t have distracted me.

What a rollercoaster.

A real page turner. What secrets are being kept- you can't wait to find out. Amelia wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and when she disappears her husband hires a private detective to find her. She's afraid- but does she have reason to be. I love thrillers and enjoyed this one.

Thrillers are definitely my cup of tea and this was such an interesting read. I love being gripped by a book and this certainly did that.

Meet Amelia, she wakes up in a hospital after a serious car accident with no memory of what happened . But she knows that something bad has happened and needs to get away from everyone.. She doesn't remember her husband or any of her friends . But she knows she has to leave .
The characters are so complex and realistic . We have a husband who isn't what he seems to be and his boss who is evil. Amelia is one tough cookie she is tough and wants answers . Never mess with a woman on a mission .
This story had me sucked in from page one and kept reading well into the night I had a book hangover by the time I was done . The story flowed great and you wanted to cheer and scream at your kindle. So if you want a great mystery read this is the book for you check it out

They say it’s better to battle the devil you know. But what if you don’t recognize him before it’s too late?

She knows her name is Amelia, but after waking up in a hospital battered and bruised with just the clothes on her back, it’s all she knows. Unable to piece together her shattered memory, she’s haunted by a vision: menacing faces and voices implying her nightmare is far from over.

Relying only on her wits and her will to live, Amelia becomes a fugitive from a mysterious man, and a life she can’t even remember. But the past she’s fleeing has no intention of letting her go.- Goodreads

Parrish has a way to keep you hanging on all the way to an upsetting end. Yes, there is an upsetting end to this fairly long novel. But let's begin, 

Amelia knows that something is wrong but cannot put her finger on it. So she runs away shortly after a man shows up at her hospital room. Her running sets a string of events that she doesn't fully understand at least until the end of the book. I liked Amelia. She is woman simply trying to get her memories back and figure out where things went wrong. She wasn't a dry character but at the same time, her current life revolves around this mystery and that is all there is to her. 

To break up that up, the author adds in another character with their point of view and in all honesty, I liked him and I wish the author wrote more about him in regards to his past and his internal turmoil. If it wasn't for this character, the book would have been extremely stall and unresponsive. 

The pace of the entire novel wasn't bad. The issues really came towards the end of the book. You feel and see the moment when the author did not have any more fight left in the book. Because everything you wanted to know is handled and everything is just placed in front of you. All that build up, all that tension went away in 2 chapters. It was weak and it was upsetting because this is a good book. It is worth the read but that ending knocks it down a few points. 

Overall, for as long as the book was there wasn't enough fighting or running. Confrontation was weak and didn't provide the intensity needed to justify the length of the book. It was a good read but it could have been way better. 

3 Pickles

Good, solid read! Nothing too crazy and had a good flow. I'd rate it a 3.4!