I Know My Name

October 30, 2017
What does the disappearance of wealthy 37-year-old Eloïse Shelley—wife, mother of two young children, and refugee activist—from her London home have to do with the dazed woman unable to remember who she is, dragging herself onto the beach of a remote Greek island? That appears to be the question around which British author Cooke’s unsettling debut psychological thriller revolves. But, as days pass and the outlook darkens, especially for the amnesiac castaway, who seems to have met up with four volatile chums on the island for a writers’ retreat, it starts to become clear that little is as it initially appears. Police begin to discover cracks in Eloïse’s marriage to workaholic corporate financier Lochlan—who has an ironclad Edinburgh alibi for the window of time when she vanished—as well as hints of some troubling mental health issues she has been hiding from her family. Cooke, who describes her own brushes with mental illness in a moving afterword, keeps the suspense high as the endangered castaway struggles to survive while back in London Eloïse’s family hunts for her with increasing desperation. Some readers, though, may feel that the author has unfairly withheld some key information. Agent: Alice Lutyens, Curtis Brown Literary (U.K.).

November 15, 2017
When an Englishwoman disappears from her home, her husband is forced to acknowledge problems in their marriage and all he does not know about his wife and her troubled childhood.A woman is rescued just off Kommeno Island, near Crete, and pulled to safety by four strangers on a writing retreat. Upon awakening, she discovers that her boat barely survived a storm and that she cannot remember her name, where she is from, or any other details about her life. The writers take care of her, but she becomes concerned about escalating tensions between the four of them and the implication that she won't be allowed to leave the island. Back in London, Lochlan receives a call at work from a neighbor who tells him his wife, Eloise, is gone and their two children, 4-year-old Max and 3-month-old Cressida, were left home alone. Over the next two weeks, Eloise works to recover her memory and keep herself safe from one of the writers, George, who's posing an increasingly erratic threat toward her and the others. In London, Lochlan calls on Eloise's maternal grandparents, Gerda and Magnus, to help him take care of the children and search for Eloise, who has disappeared without a trace. Secrets Lochlan has been hiding come out into the open, and in order to find Eloise, he, Gerda, and Magnus must all acknowledge painful family truths. As the search drags on, Lochlan realizes how consumed he's been with work, and he learns more about his wife's life and her childhood with a drug-addict mother. This debut novel builds in both intensity and nuance due to its rotating first-person narrative and perfectly paced plot. Cooke's concern for her subject matter as well as her characters shines through her crisp writing, and her novel takes on a layer of emotion not always found in psychological thrillers.A fast-paced novel that deftly strikes at the heart of what it means to survive traumatic personal and familial ruptures.

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November 1, 2017
A woman's boat is tossed onto a remote Greek island called Kommeno in the middle of a storm. A group of authors on a writers' retreat take her in, fascinated by the fact that she remembers nothing of her pastnot even her own name. In London, a businessman with two young children cannot find his wife, Eloise. Was she taken or did she run away? It soon becomes clear that the amnesiac on the island is Eloise. But why isn't she with her son and newly born daughter? The London chapters show how her husband and grandparents deal with the void Eloise has left in their lives and the questions raised by the police investigation. The Kommeno chapters focus on Eloise's search for selfa journey that will require her to face what she has hidden and what she has created in order to survive. This psychological-suspense debut will appeal to fans of Mary Kubica, S. J. Watson, and B. A. Paris.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)