Suffering from amnesia, Gracie must choose her own future

For anyone who likes snuggling up under the bedcovers or relaxing on a comfy couch with a tender love-story that has a bit of mystery thrown in, I suggest rushing down to the bookstore to grab a copy of Vanessa Carnevale’s latest offering, The Memories That Make Us.

Having just finished reviewing another novel with a similar storyline, I was delighted to find this one in my letterbox a few days later. Both novels are about women involved in serious car accidents who wake up with severe cases of amnesia. Their devoted partners are left devastated when neither one can’t remember them or any portions of their lives together.

But that’s where the similarities end as Gracie, the protagonist in The Memories That Make Us, won’t even meet with Blake, her fiancé, let alone try to get to know the man she fell in love with, even though he’s been waiting patiently in the wings for her to call. Instead, she disappears to a rundown house in the Victorian countryside – her former home and the place where her mother was once a well-respected flower grower. There she meets Flynn, a caring neighbour who’s also handy with a screwdriver around her now derelict home, even though Gracie makes it quite clear she’s not interested in getting to know anything about him, no matter how friendly he is.

That is, until one night in a pub when the drinks flow freely and she opens up about her recent accident to this kindly vet. Scarlett, her best friend, is horrified to hear they’ve been on a ‘date’, despite Gracie’s assurances they’re just friendly neighbours.

With finances dwindling and no desire to go back to her former career as a stylist for a high-end magazine, Gracie decides to learn as much as she can about her now departed mother’s passion for flowers, helped along with some vague childhood memories about the different varieties and their particular idiosyncrasies.

Being back in her childhood home also provides an opportunity to learn snippets from her life through people from her past … like Tilly, a local flower-seller who took in three-year-old Gracie and her beloved mother long ago. Tilly reminded me of Eliza Doolittle with her mobile flower-cart and blunt directness – I could even imagine a cockney twang with every word she uttered.

As the stresses of taking on a whole new business, along with spending time with a man who teaches her trust isn’t to be brushed aside, what will become of Gracie’s body as well as her heart as she toils through two new and highly physical challenges?

When a brutal storm lashes this newfound floral passion, it also brings about a storm of another kind – one that has devastating consequences for a young woman who is tentatively starting to trust this strange new world again. A mystery hidden in its pages makes the telling even more poignant.

One of many delightful vignettes was when Flynn reteaches Gracie how to tie a shoelace on a cold winter morning and the awakening of emotions his thoughtfulness bestows.

This is an exquisite slow-read and made me want to savour every description. The pages are filled with little insights into flowers and their rejuvenating properties, along with the pleasure gained when someone is presented with a well thought out posy of goodness.

I thoroughly recommend this delightful novel as a way of getting back to nature and finding yourself along the way. Vanessa Carnevale even had me turning to the beginning again to browse through certain passages that made my soul smile … and sigh with pleasure. Bravo! 

The Memories That Make Us, by Vanessa Carnevale is available from the publisher HQ Fiction, click here for details.