They accused her of committing a crime she doesn’t remember. Her name is Shauna McAllister, and she doesn’t remember her life from six months ago she was in a coma from a car accident when she awoke she learn her brother is now in a wheelchair paralyzed only able to move his head, in the same accident that left her in a coma. Apparently, she was taking drugs (ecstasy) while she was driving and that’s why she’s being charged with a crime.

Her father and stepmother put the blame squarely on her shoulders for her brother’s condition. She’s told that Wayne Spade is her boyfriend and that he will help her along the way as she recovers.

Jeeze! I can’t imagine waking up and not knowing the person they say is my boyfriend is a complete stranger to me. But wait, is he truly her boyfriend? “Well, go on you know you want to find out.”

“Do you know who he is?” Dr. Siders gestured toward the man whose warm hand still rested on her foot. She studied him again. High hairline. Color-coordinated waves and eyes. Dark brown sugar. Older than she was, maybe mid-thirties. Professional. He might be an athlete—a distance runner or a cyclist. As for who he was, she came up empty.”

She learns that she’s on a drug regimen that’s tailored to her DNA. She’s feel lied to by everyone around her, including the doctors. Ha! She doesn’t know the half of it.

Shauna also wakes up with an ability she’ll find out she has by pure accident, a gift if you will from the experimental drugs that they gave her. Of course at first, she thought she was losing her mind because she started knowing things she couldn’t possibly know.

Well, I for one would like to know some things I have no business knowing. Lol! It’s a very cool ability I totally want it for myself, you know I’ll use it only for good.

So that Wayne Spade guy, the pretend boyfriend, is the first person that she realizes was her accidental guinea pig. Luckily!

With her father running for the presidency, Shauna needs to recover her missing memories so that she can find out why she was in the process of, well bringing her father down. And why the people around her are either being murdered or threatened in some way.

There are hints of child abuse, but it stays on the surface for the most part. I would have liked to find more. I mean how and why can a father allow anyone to treat his child the way her stepmother treated her throughout her childhood.

This novel delves into humanity at its worst, and it’s most resilient. It’s a page-turner for sure, there’s some action, a lot of back-stabbing. An intriguing mystery and suspense thriller, with some paranormal elements, weaved in to keep you up all night wanting to finish it.

From the book cover

Let me tell you all I know for sure. My name. Shauna. I woke up in a hospital bed missing six months of my memory. In the room was my loving boyfriend – how could I have forgotten him? – my uncle and my abusive stepmother. Everyone blames me for the tragic car accident that left me near death and my dear brother brain damaged. But what they say can’t be true – can it?

I believe the medicine is doing strange things to my memory. I’m unsure who I can trust and who I should run from. And I’m starting to remember things I’ve never known. Things not about me. I think I’m going crazy.

And even worse, I think they want to kill me.

But who? And for what? Is dying for the truth really better than living with a lie?

More by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy