Book Review: What Rose Forgot by Nevada Barr

What Rose Forgot, a novel by Nevada Barr

What Rose Forgot

First paragraph:

Rose's head jerks, drops, and she's awake. I've fallen asleep meditating, she thinks. It's been a while since she's done that. Over the years, an ease of concentration has incrementally developed. Staying awake is - was - easy. Eyes still closed, she sweeps her hands overhead, breathing in. The inner elbow of her right arm burns like a cigarette has been stubbed out on her flesh....

Rose, 68, wakes up frail, feeling like 100 years old, and finds herself on the grounds of a home for the mentally impaired, from which she seems to have escaped. She doesn't remember how she got there or why. After being hauled back into the maximum security home, Rose realizes she  doesn't belong there but is being drugged to make it seem as if she is mentally incompetent or suffering from ALS. Rose stops taking her medications, hides her pills, becomes slowly more alert daily, and plots her escape.

She not only has to get through locked doors, but find out who has done this to her - admitted her to this home from which no one comes out alive. Rose's husband has recently died, which leaves only her two stepsons and her 13-year-old granddaughter, Mel, the only one she thinks she can count on.

As the suspense builds, Rose, a former yoga practitioner, decides how to fool her caretakers in the institution and slither out of their grasp, with the help of granddaughter Mel and Rose's long-distance sister Marion. She also has to find out who committed her to the home and why.

I loved the intrigue, the unanswered questions posed by a tantalizing plot , and Rose's determination and quick thinking, at age 68. This was an entertaining read, which I did in just over a day.

This ebook was borrowed through NetGalley. Publication: September 17, 2019, Minotaur Books

Meme: Each week, Vicki at I’d Rather Be At The Beach hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers share the beginning paragraph(s) of a book they are reading or plan to read.