ARC Review: In The Dark We Forget by Sandra SG Wong

My review: 3.5⭐

A lady wakes up in a ditch and has no clue who she is or how she got there. She makes it to a police station, gives her statement, gets an exam by a physician and finds out she was drugged. As the police investigate what happened to her they learn that her name is Cleopatra the same time they learn her parents are missing. Luckily they find a piece of paper with a man’s name on it, which turns out to be Cleo’s brother, Cassius.

Since Cleo’s memory is shot and her brother, Cass, was somewhat estranged from their parents there is a lot of speculation as to what might have happened to Stephen and Glinda Li. Does it have anything to do with Glinda recently winning $47 million in the lotto? Or is there something more dark going on? Is Cleo really the terrible person her ex co-workers are making her out to be?

The story is told solely by our unreliable narrator, Cleo, in 3 parts. 1 & 2 were a little on the slow side for me, but the story really picked up with some suspenseful moments in the final part. I’m not too sure about the ending, but that’s the clever writing of the author’s doing.

It was interesting to me that the author felt the need to let readers know each characters ethnicity, especially when someone was white. Was that to really make the cultural aspects of the Chinese Canadian heritage stand out? I did like learning about their culture, though, and it gave me a better understanding of the Li family

Anyway, this was a solid psychological debut that will make you wonder whodunit until the chilling end.

*Many thanks to Sophia at Harper Collins 360 for sending me a paperback ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*

⬇Purchase links ⬇

Amazon

Book blurb: Release date ~ June 21, 2022

A jolting psychological suspense novel from an up-and-coming Chinese-Canadian crime writer about missing parents, a winning lottery ticket and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.

Some things are better left forgotten . . .

When a woman wakes up with amnesia beside a mountain highway, confused and alone, she fights to regain her identity, only to learn that her parents have disappeared—not long after her mother bought a winning $47 million lottery ticket.

As her memories painfully resurface and the police uncover details of her parents’ mysterious disappearance, Cleo Li finds herself under increasing suspicion. Even with the unwavering support of her brother, she can’t quite reconcile her fears with reality or keep the harrowing nightmares at bay.

As Cleo delves deeper for the truth, she cannot escape the nagging sense that maybe the person she should be afraid of…is herself.

With jolting revelations and taut ambiguity, In the Dark We Forget vividly examines the complexities of family—and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.

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