I am delighted to be sharing a mini review of ‘What Was Lost’ by Jean Levy, for my stop on the blog tour organised by Dome Press. Many thanks to Emily and the publisher for the blog tour invite and the ARC. Here is my review:
How would you live if you had no memories? And what if you were suspected of a terrible crime?
Sarah has no memories. She just knows she was found, near death, on a beach miles from her London home. Now she is part of a medical experiment to see whether her past can be retrieved.
But bad things seemed to have happened before she disappeared. The police are interested in her hidden memories too. A nice man she meets in the supermarket appears to have her best interests at heart. He seems to understand her – almost as if he knows her…
As she fights to regain her memories and her sense of self, it is clear that people are hiding things from her. Who are they protecting? Does Sarah really want the truth?
What does TWG think?
Geeeez! Can you imagine what it must be like to wake up one day and have absolutely no recollection of your past, remembering only minute details from when you were a child? I can only guess just how scary that must be, especially if you come face to face with loved ones, they know you yet you have absolutely no idea who they are or how they came into your life. What if you were romantically involved with someone and had no idea? What if people around you were telling you lies about your past, or feeding you pieces of information which you would then take as gospel, purely because you can’t remember a thing? Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine!
Sarah finds herself under the watchful eye of people ‘who know best’ in the medical field. They say that they have her best interests at heart, but is keeping items from her past away from her, really the best way to go about it? Or, are they right in saying that Sarah needs to remember things naturally? ‘What Was Lost’ is a slow burner of a read which sets the scene of Sarah’s current life with the author drip feeding readers with information regarding to her past, courtesy of someone who said that they are from her past. I couldn’t help but have so many questions relating to the medical team who were supposedly supporting her recovery as, obviously I am not a medically trained professional, but something didn’t sit quite right with the way they were approaching the whole memories and interrogation. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. I just felt a little bit ‘off’ towards the whole thing.
I really did feel sorry for Sarah as people were coming into her home and not giving her the full picture, coming across as though they were hiding things from her. Why wouldn’t they give her a chance? What on Earth were they trying to hide?
I thought that Jean Levy’s story was very cleverly executed as she was able to bring the main character to life without explaining the bigger picture. I may not have had the entire truth for a large proportion of the book, yet there was just something so gripping about the storyline which made me want to stay and search for that bigger picture. The final puzzle piece if you will. The psychological aspect of the book was bang on as even I struggled to keep my mind on the straight and narrow, despite not being directly involved in Sarah’s life!
‘What Was Lost’ is a highly gripping, intriguing and powerful read, which has been written with such intense detail that the storyline seemed to speak for itself without us knowing the full story. Very, very impressed!
The Writing Garnet 