The Memory House

 

Shirley J.         Adult Fiction         Two women with tragic pasts find peace in their new home

The Memory House by Rachel Hauck   384 pages

 Beck Holiday, a policewoman who suffered selective amnesia in her teens inherits a house in Florida from a woman she no longer remembers.  Beck is pregnant by her married lieutenant from a one night stand when both were drunk at an afterhours bar.   Beck lost her father in the 9/11 tragedy and all of her memories of him.   One day during a drug bust in which an animal was hurt,  Beck loses it and wails on the perp.  She gets suspended for misconduct and never being an animal person she has to suspect it has to do with her hormones now that she is pregnant, that or the stress of her secret.   She struggles to get her life under control.   Seems like a perfect time to go check this house out.  The plot thickens when Bruno Endicott turns up.  Seems Bruno had a major crush on Beck when they were teens and spending time at the Memory House visiting the lady who owned it, Everleigh Applegate, during the summers when Beck's parents would vacation in Florida.   Beck has no memory of Bruno nor Everleigh, but, Bruno assures her they were an item and Bruno's mother tells Beck how madly in love with her Bruno was, that he waited for her to return every Summer.   As Beck tries to discover why Everleigh would leave her house to her, Everleigh's tragic story comes out, of losing her husband and his parents to a tornado that Everleigh survived.  Of putting their child, a son,  up for adoption, living a dull life of a widow with only her mother for company until she runs into a former friend from school who makes her think about a better  life if only she didn't have such an awful secret.   The two storylines run side by side to the gripping end.   The story makes the reader think, "what would you do in these situations?"  I recommend this one to teens on up.