A jolting psychological suspense novel from an up-andcoming crime writer about missing parents, a winning lottery ticket and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.
IN THE DARK WE FORGET
by Sandra SG Wong
HarperCollins, June 2022
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)
Some things are better left forgotten. . . When a woman wakes up with amnesia beside a mountain highway, confused and alone, she fights to regain her identity, only to learn that her parents have disappeared—not long after her mother bought a winning $47 million lottery ticket. As her memories painfully resurface and the police uncover details of her parents’ mysterious disappearance, Cleo Li finds herself under increasing suspicion. Even with the unwavering support of her brother, she can’t quite reconcile her fears with reality or keep the harrowing nightmares at bay. As Cleo delves deeper for the truth, she cannot escape the nagging sense that maybe the person she should be afraid of…is herself.
With jolting revelations and taut ambiguity, IN THE DARK WE FORGET vividly examines the complexities of family—and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive.
“A chilling, nerve-jangling journey into lost memories and unforgettable terrors. Sandra Wong knows what scares us all—and what we can never forget.” – Tess Gerritsen, New York Times-bestselling author of Listen to Me
« IN THE DARK WE FORGET is a hair-raising high-wire act. Wong gives us a hero whose search for her identity, and the truth of what happened to upend her life, reveals more than she wants to know, and leaves the reader gasping as much in admiration as in fear. » – Sara Paretsky, award-winning author of Dead Land
Sandra SG Wong writes fiction across genres. She is a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence and a nominee for the Whistler Independent Book Awards. She holds an honours BA in English literature and speaks four languages at varying levels of proficiency, though she usually only curses in one of them. Sandra lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and is too often tweeting from @S_G_Wong or tweaking sgwong.com instead of writing.
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Sometimes, a woman has to rescue herself
Fame. Fortune. Love. You can’t have them all.
Ana will never forget her mother’s face when she sent her and her baby brother, Oskar, out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish resettlement organization seizes them, claiming to have their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves. Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a Jewish aunt seeks to reclaim him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem. Renata, a graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past—except for her own. After her mother’s death, Renata’s grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl. Two decades after the war, these characters are each building lives for themselves in Israel, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in unexpected ways, they must ask where they truly belong. Beautifully evocative and tender, filled with both luminosity and anguish, ONCE WE WERE HOME illuminates a little-known history. Based on the true stories of children stolen during wartime, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.