What Rose Forgot

June 10, 2019
Painter Rose Dennis, the 68-year-old protagonist of this winning standalone from bestseller Barr (the Anna Pigeon series), wakes in the Charlotte, N.C., woods with no notion of how she got there. The hospital gown–clad Rose wanders to the road, where she’s captured and tranquilized. She regains consciousness cuffed to a bed in a nursing home. Convinced she’s being involuntarily held for some nefarious purpose, Rose stops taking her medication and escapes. Drug-induced amnesia lingers, but she manages to locate her 13-year-old granddaughter, Mel, who says Rose began acting strangely after her husband’s recent death. Doctors diagnosed early-onset Alzheimer’s, prompting Rose’s stepsons to hospitalize her. Confident she’s of sound mind and uncertain whom to trust, Rose swears Mel to secrecy and heads home, where she narrowly avoids assassination. Desperate for answers, Rose launches an investigation with help from Mel and others. Tension mounts as Rose’s memory returns and the situation deteriorates. Thrilling action, madcap humor, and a larger-than-life cast energize this cleverly plotted take on a traditional mystery. Barr surprises and entertains from start to finish. 150,000 first printing; author tour. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

July 15, 2019
Barr takes a break from her bestselling series about National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon (Boar Island, 2016, etc.) for a one-of-a-kind stand-alone that follows the adventures of a woman committed to a Memory Care Unit for dementia as she fights to claw back her life. There's a lot of stuff Rose Dennis doesn't know. She doesn't know when and how she got out of Longwood or when and how she arrived there in the first place. She's surprised and pained when people remind her that although she grew up in New Orleans, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, with Harley, her husband of 15 years, and that he's died. At one point she's not even sure whether she's 68 years old or 103. After a pair of orderlies hustle her back to Longwood, however, Rose resolves that it's the medications she's being fed that are sapping her powers of mind and will and vows to stop taking them and escape again, this time for keeps. Fortunately, her second attempt takes her to the home of Melanie Dennis, Harley's levelheaded, resourceful 13-year-old granddaughter, who's more than ready to do whatever it takes to keep Gigi, as she calls Rose, two steps ahead of her pursuers. Unfortunately, one of those pursuers, a shadowy man armed with a knife, breaks into the old house where Rose is hiding out and tries to kill her. More adventures follow, some of them involving Rose's hermitlike sister, Marion Bliss, who offers all the help a life spent online allows, some involving Karen Black, the hapless Longwood nurse Rose gets the better of on three separate occasions. It's both a nuisance and a personal triumph when the media get hold of Rose's story and label her "Gun Granny." A tour de force that thickens its thriller plot with a razor-sharp view of its heroine's unreliable but perceptive mind.

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July 1, 2019
After a failed escape, Rose is carted back into a locked memory-care unit by a pair of hulking orderlies and immediately drugged into oblivion. But, before she drifts off, Rose overhears a conversation in which someone says she isn't expected to last the week. What? Rose never bows to expectations, so she fakes taking her sedatives, shakes off the drug-induced fog, and begins to remember what has happened to her. She and her husband, Harley, had recently moved to Charlotte to join Harley's sons and granddaughter, Melanie. Then Harley died unexpectedly, and Rose somehow ended up locked in the old folks' home. Determined to foil whatever diabolical plot has landed her there, Rose drugs the night nurse and follows her spotty memories to Melanie's house, where she takes cover in the outdoor playhouse. With Mel's help, Rose turns the tables, outmaneuvering the cops, her possibly malevolent relatives, and a bumbling hit man to unmask an inheritance-grabbing murder scheme. No doubt Barr's many fans are craving another Anna Pigeon novel (after Boar Island, 2016), but this stand-alone with plenty of heart won't disappoint.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from August 1, 2019

Barr, author of the acclaimed "Anna Pigeon" mysteries, offers this stand-alone that follows a woman through drug-induced memory loss and confinement in a memory care unit. At 68, Rose Dennis has no recollection of what happened in her life that would require her placement in a nursing home. Finally escaping from the institution, Rose, with help from her 13-year-old granddaughter and her sister, pieces together the mystery that has robbed her memory. Like Park Ranger Anna Pigeon, Rose is a strong-willed, resourceful woman who moves forward no matter the odds. She uncovers a corrupt plot of nursing home officials and greedy relatives seeking to get their hands on family fortunes. Just how Rose fits into such a plot is deliciously described by Barr, who captures readers' attention in a plot that becomes more detailed and interconnected with each page. For baby boomer readers who are near Rose's age, the intricacies of her story will be compelling and perhaps a bit scary. VERDICT Fans who love Barr will devour this book, and readers who don't want to begin a multivolume journey with one character will delight in this new stand-alone title. [See Prepub Alert, 2/25/19.]--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community Coll., Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2019

In this detour from Barr's New York Times best-selling Anna Pigeon series, sixtyish Rose Dennis wakes up in an Alzheimer's unit at a nursing home and hears an administrator opining that she won't make it through the week. Her mind is fine, so why did her relatives commit her? Craftily plotting her escape and convinced after a break-in at her home that someone wants her dead, Rose relies on her reclusive computer-genius sister Marion,

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.