Speaking Volumes LLC. – The Book Diva's Reads

Forget Me, Forget Me Not Book 1, by Lisa Sherman
ISBN: 9781645407362 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781645407355 (ebook)
ASIN: B0B8QQ91KT (Kindle edition)
Publisher: Speaking Volumes LLC.
Release Date: August 22, 2022
Genre: Fiction | Mystery/Suspense

How can you know who you really are if you can’t remember your past?

Wanda Dellas is living someone else’s life: that’s the sense she’s had since a mysterious accident robbed her of her long-term memory. Lost and barely scraping by, Wanda cleans offices at night in order to support her young daughter.

Then Wanda sees a news report about a presumed dead businesswoman, Claire Stanbrick. Bad enough that Claire bears an uncanny resemblance to Wanda. But it turns out Claire went missing around the same time as Wanda’s accident, too. Plus, she can’t shake the sense that Claire’s husband Jack, who’s serving time in prison for Claire’s murder, is innocent. And she’s beginning to develop feelings for him. But which feelings are real and which are just figments of her fractured memory?

Answers to the past often come at a price.

As Wanda learns more about Claire, she realizes Claire didn’t have the picture-perfect life Wanda imagined . . . a fact someone following her is determined to keep a secret. And the more Wanda discovers, the more she faces new dangers that threaten her life . . . or is it Claire’s?

Read an Excerpt:

My nerves fire hot beneath my skin as I wait for the security guard to vanish. I loop my cleaning bucket over my arm and inch the cleaning cart toward the door, nothing to see here. I’m nonchalant, until I am certain he is out of sight. Then I rush in, leaving the door slightly ajar behind me. The room smells of mold, of dust and mothballs, but mostly of secrets. I breathe in the air, the same air Claire used to breathe, and wonder what discoveries await me.

The office has a presence to it, of life lived, of love. The familiarity of the space butters my skin. But I’m not sure why. I feel warm and bubbly. I want to dance. It seems as if I’ve seen it all before: the desk chair with the wobbly arm, the triangular table wedged into the corner, the half-bookcase standing against the back wall. But have I?

Piles of files and folders litter the floor. Old computers sit in a mound, crammed in a heap against the back wall. A desk sits at an awkward angle in the center of the room, stacked high with boxes. A thick layer of dirt coats the desktop from end to end. I run my pinky through it. This place hasn’t been cleaned in years. I pull out a can of wood cleaner and wipe the desk down with a cloth, polishing the sides, pressing dust out of the carved crevices. But I can’t just spend my time cleaning. I need to see if there’s any information I can find that will shed light on whether or not I am Claire.

My fingers trace the base of the desk drawer. I tug it open. Inside, two picture frames rest folded up. One with a photo of Claire and Jack, facing each other laughing, the tips of their noses covered in butter- cream, a wedding photo. I giggle and wipe at my own nose. But of course, there’s no frosting there.

The other contains a picture of Claire in a graduation gown, shaking hands with a dean, receiving a diploma. In the photo, she is beaming, her dimples peppering her cheeks, her red hair bright against the black cloth of the gown. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember something, anything about that day. The smell of flowering spring leaves in the quad? Shielding my eyes as the sun reflects off the tops of the program covers? The sound of applause as graduates cross the stage? But I’ve got nothing. Even the name of the university evades me. I flip the frame around, slide the metal tab to the side, and pry the picture out. The photo crinkles between my fingers as I read the words on the back. “Class of 2000.” I spin the year around in my mind, to see if it triggers something. My shoulders fall. Nothing.

I stuff the photos back into the drawer when a box, its top partially open, catches my eye. Inside are stacks and stacks of notepads and pens, each with an orange and white SMG logo printed across the top. SMG, Claire’s now-defunct company. I grab a fistful of pens and stick them in my smock. Souvenirs.

The room suddenly feels suffocating. I walk over to the window, press my palms against the glass and look out. The city is peaceful. Most offices are still dark and only a scant few cars make their way along the empty streets below. I rest my hands on top of the ledge, the marble smooth and cool beneath my fingertips. The answer to who I am is not out there.

I am shaken from my thoughts when footsteps shuffle into the room. It’s Astrid, sweet, sleepy Astrid, rubbing her eyes.

“Is it almost time to go home, Mama?”

“How did you know where I was?” I ask.

“I looked in all the rooms. I’m an explorer.”

A panic washes over me as I think about Astrid roaming the hallways by herself.

“Astrid, please. Next time you have to stay put. You can’t go wandering around. It isn’t safe to do that. Someone could see you. I’m not supposed to bring you with me. I could lose my job or worse, you could get hurt.”

She pouts at me. I’ve bruised her feelings. But that’s too bad. I would die if anything happened to her. Die.

I rest my hands on her shoulders. “You’re not in any trouble. Just promise me you won’t wander off again.”

“Promise.” She chews on a strand of hair.

I kiss the top of her head. I’m a horrible mother. It’s my fault we’re even here. She should be at home sleeping securely in bed. But she’s not. She’s stuck here with me. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I just need to find out what happened to me. How did I end up shot and in the Wisconsin River? The answer to those questions lies somewhere with Claire and this company. It’s got to.

Excerpt from Forget Me by Lisa Sherman.
Copyright © 2022 by Lisa Sherman.
All rights reserved.
Published by Speaking Volumes LLC.

Meet The Author

Author Photo: Lisa Sherman, woman wearing jeans and sweater standing in front of blurred outdoor scene Lisa Sherman has always had a passion for stories and the fictional worlds created by her favorite authors. Her love of words led her to pursue a BA in English Literature as an undergraduate. Her interest in jurisprudence led her to law school, where she attained her Juris Doctor degree. Later, Lisa rounded out her love of writing by obtaining an MFA. Lisa has always been fascinated with the “why” behind people’s actions. As a writer of psychological thrillers and women’s fiction, she hopes readers will enjoy getting a sneak peek into what makes her characters act the way they do, especially when faced with challenging or extraordinary situations. Find out more at: https://lisashermanauthor.com/.

Connect with the Author: Instagram | Twitter | Website

This excerpt brought to you by Books Forward PR

Hello, book people. I’m excited to introduce you to today’s special guest, a criminal justice professor and the author of the Hannah McCabe and Lizzie Stuart mystery series, including A Dead Man’s Honor, Frankie Y. Bailey. Ms. Bailey will be introducing us to Lizzie Stuart and discussing the idea of the past intruding on our present. Thank you, Ms. Bailey, for taking time of your busy school and writing schedule to visit with us today.

Out of the Past

By Frankie Y. Bailey

I love film noir. Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum, is one of my favorite noir films. I watch it every time it comes up in the TCM cycle. The movie is about a former private investigator who got into trouble and has settled in a small town and opened a gas station under an assumed identity. But he has not escaped his past. He is summoned to a meeting with the crooked businessman who once hired him to locate a woman and his stolen money. The woman, with whom the PI had a dangerous affair, is back with his former client. Mitchum may hope to do what the businessman has demanded and go back to his new life, but Jane Greer, the femme fatale, has other ideas. As you might expect of film noir, even the love of a good (small town) woman can’t save Mitchum.

I don’t write noir fiction. My character, Lizzie Stuart, is a crime historian and the five books in which she has appeared so far are both academic mysteries and traditional classic detective fiction. But, like Robert Mitchum’s character, Lizzie has not been able to escape her past. The fact that she is not sure of who her father was – or is, he might still be alive – means that she must decide later in the series whether she will look for him. There’s also the matter of Becca, her missing mother – who puts in her appearance in Book 4 and can hold her own with any noir femme fatale.

As the series are being reissued, I’m looking back at how it evolved. Book 2, A Dead Man’s Honor, was initially going to be the readers’ introduction to Lizzie Stuart. Instead, it followed a book set in Cornwall, during which Lizzie’s best friend, Tess Alvarez, a travel writer, and John Quinn, a Philadelphia homicide detective were introduced. Lizzie’s vacation in Cornwall, England, followed the death of the grandmother who raised her. It’s Lizzie’s dead grandmother, Hester Rose, who is front and center in A Dead Man’s Honor.

Hester Rose was close-mouthed about a lot of things – including her childhood in Gallagher, Virginia before she climbed into a boxcar and left the town under cover of darkness. In A Dead Man’s Honor, Lizzie has applied for and received an appointment as a visiting professor at Piedmont State University in Gallagher. She has joined the faculty in the School of Criminal Justice. As is the custom for visiting faculty, she has teaching responsibilities. She also has the research agenda that she described in her application. She wants to investigate a lynching in Gallagher. As a young girl, Hester Rose was witness to a lynching involving a black man accused of murder. She was there in the house with the accused man and the young deaf woman who loved him. As the police and angry white citizens gathered outside the house, Hester Rose was put out of a window.

It is usually Lizzie’s voice that we hear in the series. She is the first-person narrator. But she sometimes flashes back to a conversation with one of her grandparents. Only a fleeting thought here and there. A Dead Man’s Honor, the only way to describe the lynching was from Hester Rose’s point of view. From the point of view of a frightened child as she hides in the bushes, watching. As Mose Davenport runs out of the house and is shot by someone in the crowd. As, later, she climbs into the boxcar and leaves Gallagher.

Hester Rose tries to flee her past. Lizzie goes back to Gallagher to dig it up because she wants to know more about her grandmother and herself.

Meet the author

Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany (SUNY). Her areas of research are crime history, and crime and mass media/popular culture and material culture. She is the author of a number of non-fiction books, including local histories and books about crime fiction. Her mystery novels feature Southern-born crime historian, Lizzie Stuart, in five books, beginning with Death’s Favorite Child and A Dead Man’s Honor. The books are being reissued by Speaking Volumes. Frankie’s two near-future police procedurals feature Albany police detective, Hannah McCabe in The Red Queen Dies and What the Fly Saw (Minotaur Books). Frankie has also has written several short stories, including “In Her Fashion” (EQMM, July 2014), “The Singapore Sling Affair” (EQMM, Nov/Dec 2017), and “The Birth of the Bronze Buckaroo” (The Adventures of the Bronze Buckaroo, 2018). She is currently working on a nonfiction book about dress and appearance in American crime and justice, a historical thriller set in 1939, and the plots of the next Stuart and McCabe books. Frankie is a past executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.

Connect with the author at her website or Twitter

A Dead Man’s Honor A Lizzie Stuart Mystery #2 by Frankie Y. Bailey
ISBN: 9781628158731 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781628158724 (ebook)
ASIN: B07FTYK444 (Kindle edition)
Publication date: June 5, 2018 (originally published on January 1, 2001)
Publisher: Speaking Volumes, LLC.

Crime historian Lizzie Stuart goes to Gallagher, Virginia for a year as a visiting professor at Piedmont State University. She is there to do research for a book about the 1921 lynching that her grandmother Hester Rose witnessed when she was a 12-year-old child.

Lizzie’s research is complicated by her own unresolved feelings about her secretive grandmother and by the disturbing presence of John Quinn, the police officer she met while on vacation in England. Add to that the murder of an arrogant and brilliant faculty member on Halloween night and Lizzie has about all she can handle.

This guest post brought to you by BreakThrough Promotions