Story for the Week
Unless you’re the parent of a young child, you don’t typically need reading buddies to practice this particular hobby. Reading would typically be characterized as a solo activity.
I’ve talked before (a lot) about one of Corinne’s best friends, Aly, who grew up two houses down from us. We met when Corinne and Aly were about three and six, respectively. In fact, one of the earliest pictures I have of them together is at Aly’s birthday party.
Aly and the four kids who lived three houses down from us (Alyssa, Anthony, CarolAnn, and Ralph) were staples at our house. Backyard antics, birthday parties, holidays, sleepovers, arguments, Corinne getting in trouble for screaming when Ralph scared her when they were supposed to be sleeping but I didn’t hear him and she won’t let me live it down to this day. You know, all the normal growing up stuff.
But the only reader among the five friends was Aly. When I started taking Corinne to the library every Saturday, Aly came along…by choice. It was our Saturday thing. When she was younger, she didn’t really know how to find the books she might like. As a grade school kid faced with literally hundreds of fiction choices, Aly found it daunting.
I showed her the “Nancy method.” It’s not a secret, nothing special. Find a cover you like with a title that grabs you. Read the description on the back. In this case, I do judge a book by its cover.
Corinne started out as a reader (The Joy of Raising a Reader), but it’s not something she enjoys for pleasure anymore. She reads more slowly and prefers to listen to the audio while she reads along, so most of the reading she does now is for school. (Maybe she’ll become an audiobook reader one day. One can only hope.)
Aly, on the other hand, is a voracious reader. She introduced me to Divergent when she was into all the dystopian stuff that teenagers seem to enjoy (and secretly in love with Four…IYKYK 🤫). She signed up for summer reading with us. I held onto her library card for a long time because she mainly went to the library with us…and because she lost her card more than once. 🤣 I helped her set up her online account so she could renew books that she still needed to finish. We gave her my old Kindle when I upgraded so she could borrow books and they would never be late because they would be returned automatically.
When summer reading activities included taking photos and posting them to the library’s Instagram, Aly was in them. Post a picture reading outside? Done! (Note the inclusion of my best friend Stephanie in one of the pictures. She also is a best reading buddy. It is not, however, her birthday tomorrow. 😉) Post a picture at a library in another state? Done! (Because yes, of course, we took Aly to New York with us on vacation, and yes, the New York Public Library was closed. We took a picture anyway.) And when I first put up a gazebo in the backyard where I would lie on a loveseat and read for hours, Aly joined me more than once.
Aly is a full-blown adult now with her own car, a job, a steady boyfriend (hi, Andrew!) and her own bills to pay. She even has possession of her library card. But I miss our Saturday treks to the library and our hours reading together. Because even though reading is a solo activity, sometimes it’s nice to sit quietly and read with a friend…separate but together and the perfect introvert activity.
She would enjoy the author reviewed below since she recently told me her favorite genre is probably thrillers and suspense. (Yes, I asked her.)
Aly, we are thankful every day that you became such a big part of our lives. We love you. Have an amazing birthday! And happy reading. 📖
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham
330 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books
Publication Date: August 26, 2025
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books.
Publisher’s Description
Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist…until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.
With the entire summer now looming ahead—a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother—Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in that last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time.
However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard’s owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary’s contents…as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister’s disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.
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Main Characters:
- Claire – New York-based investigative journalist who quit her job to freelance after being passed over for a promotion, has had a tenuous relationship with her parents since her older sister vanished when Claire was about 11
- Liam – works at Galloway Farms and shows Claire the ropes when she decides to work for a month to help harvest
- Mitchell and Marcia – owners of Galloway Farms
There is a reason Stacy Willingham made it into my Favorite Authors category pretty quickly. A master of the slow burn story, Willingham creates intricate stories designed to pull in the reader so well that you forget to pay attention to potential clues that might help you guess what’s going to happen.
I’m not going to give any spoilers here. There are some obvious things that I suspected, but there were also a couple of moments where I thought, “didn’t see that coming, but I feel like I should have.” I felt so engaged in the story that I completely missed them. And I love that about Willingham’s novels.
Claire Campbell is an investigative journalist from New York who has just quit her job when she receives a call from her father. Her mother hurt herself in a fall at home. They’re divorced, so he can’t be the one to help out, so he asks Claire if she might be able to come home to South Carolina for a while.
After her sister Natalie’s disappearance, Claire couldn’t get away fast enough, but between her job and her mom being hurt, she decides that maybe she should go home for a break. She sublets her apartment, packs up her car, and heads to her mom’s. The problem is that her mom doesn’t want her there. When she overhears her parents arguing on the phone, she hops in her car and finds herself headed to Galloway Farms where her sister spent a summer working before she disappeared.
She doesn’t know what prompted her to see the farm…maybe just a feeling of closeness to her sister since the farm seemed so special to her. When Claire arrives, she meets Liam, who expected a potential worker for an interview. The worker ends up a no-show, and while Liam shows Claire around the farm, she offers to work for the month to help harvest. It will give her space from her mom since she’d stay in the guest house, closeness to her sister’s past, and a little extra cash that she can desperately use since she’s out of work.
There are things about the farm that raise some red flags for Claire, but they’re pretty close to being off the grid, so it could just be her city mindset. She feels like Mitchell is a little controlling over Marcia, but Marcia is on the quiet side, so it could just be their dynamic. When she finds an old diary shoved into the air conditioning vent, though, those red flags start flying a little higher.
True to form for Willingham, the story is a bit of a slow burn, but so much happens in the short time Claire is home in South Carolina! And once Claire starts digging, there really is no going back. This IS what she does for a living after all.
This is an amazing story within a story that only covers about a week of Claire’s life in real time but also spans decades. Claire in the present day uses her investigative background to dig into her sister’s disappearance. The diary, which Claire becomes obsessed with reading, tells Marcia’s story from the time she met Mitchell to how she came to the farm. Claire starts digging into them too, and that’s what really starts to build the suspense.
Another excellent thriller by Stacy Willingham. Pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.
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