What Was Lost by Jean Levy

What Was Lost by Jean Levy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 2 days

Pages - 464

Publisher - The Dome Press

Source - Review Copy

Blubr from Goodreads

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?


My Review

Meet Sarah, a children's author, successful, a woman who spoke her mind as and when, well that was Sarah. Sarah now is a very different woman after her accident, well we think it was an accident. Sarah was found near death and injured at a beach after being missing, Sarah has no memory of what happened. Whatever Sarah survived was enough to affect her brain and shut out all of her memories apart from when she was a child. For her own protection she lives in a very sheltered bubble, assessed by professionals, her money and contact with others controlled. Life is very confusing and lonely for Sarah until she meets a man at the supermarket, fate brings him to her life again and again until Sarah starts to trust him and try piece together her memory and what actually happened.

Sarah isn't a reliable narrator to be honest, purely because she herself isn't sure what has happened, she tries to take note of things so she can remember. As the reader this can be a wee bit frustrating as you just want to know everything and "What Was Lost" doesn't give up it's secrets easily. We follow the professionals trying to unravel and understand Sarah's brain and we also get snippets of chat from the police. We know something bad has happened but we are as much in the dark as everyone else.

For a debut novel it really hooks you in, slowly revealing more of the story as we get snippets from the other characters. I was like oh I am not sure about you and something isn't right with this one, I felt like I used to watching murder she wrote, I suspected everything and every one lol. The professionals in the book, well some of them, really ripped my knittin in the way they handled some of the decisions or actions with/in regards to their patient.

It is a book that keeps the reader on their toes as you honestly don't know what is coming, why people are behaving as they are and what else is being kept from us/Sarah. I liked the build up, the tension and I loved the wee cat who isn't a big part at all but did demand attention when he briefly appeared. The brain is an amazing organ and I found myself putting the book down and looking up relevant conditions whist reading this, I love when a book does this.

I am so happy this was sent to me for review and I cannot wait to see what is next from this author, if you are looking for something new and like books that keep you guessing then this is for you. 4/5 for me this time and had work not gotten in the way I am sure I would have read it in one sitting.

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