A Knives Out-style whodunnit with a twist of Taylor Jenkins Reid,
You Must Remember This is an immersive Gothic mystery, with a long-ago
love affair, icy death, and a rich family gone bad, from Kat Rosenfield,
the acclaimed author of No One Will Miss Her.
On Christmas Eve, eighty-five-year-old Miriam Caravasios steps onto the
ice that surrounds her seaside estate on Maine's Mount Desert Island. As
a younger woman, she used to steal out on winter nights to meet her
lover, walking across the frozen reach to their secret meeting place.
She knows the way--but not the year. Miriam, her mind clouded by
dementia, doesn't hear the snap of thin ice until it's too late.
Was it an accident? Suicide? Or worse: did someone lure the old woman
onto the frozen reach, to her death?
There are plenty of suspects; Miriam's fractured and complicated family
has gathered in their Bar Harbor mansion to celebrate what everyone
believed would likely be the matriarch's last Christmas. The guests
include Delphine, Miriam's granddaughter, a frightened and insecure
young woman who adored her grandmother, and Miriam's live-in aide, Adam,
whom Delphine has been secretly dating. There is Miriam's former
housekeeper, Shelly Dyer, who left the family's employment years ago
under mysterious circumstances. There are Miriam's children: Theodora,
who gave up everything to assume the role of caretaker; Diana, who seems
just a little too eager to inherit her share of the estate; and Richard,
whose longtime grudge against his mother has curdled into gleeful
contempt at her deterioration.
But it's Delphine who comes in for the greatest scrutiny when they learn
the shocking news that Miriam's will cut off her children, leaving her
granddaughter almost everything.
As tensions rise, Delphine is emboldened to start asking questions: not
just about her grandmother's death, but about her life, and the love
story that defined it as the rest of her memories faded. The trail will
take her into the past, into dark places -- and eventually, onto thin
ice.
