Always the book-lover, I am constantly going out of my way to find new books to fawn over. I’ll admit, my preferred genre is fantasy or science fiction, but when I saw the romance book Memory Lane by Becky Wade, sitting on the “New Releases” table at the library, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Memory Lane—released this past Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2023—follows a young woman named Remy Reed. Remy lives on a secluded island near Maine where she spends most of her time creating wood sculptures and basking in the gorgeous nature surrounding her. 

One day, she looks out her window and spots a man fighting to keep his head above the water with no boat in sight. Remy rushes out on her boat to save him. 

Luckily, she gets to him in time and manages to haul him out of the water. When Remy gets back to her house, she realizes that she is in charge of taking care of him—because there is no hospital on the island—until he regains his conscience. However, when he wakes up, we find out that he has amnesia; he does not remember anything since trying not to drown in the ocean—not even his name. The only things he has are a wedding ring and a watch to aid him in recollecting his memories. 

The rest of Memory Lane follows Remy and the mystery man, who they call Jonah until they can figure out his true identity, as they both heal from past traumas while simultaneously trying not to fall in love with each other.

Typing it out, it does not sound like a bad storyline; however, the way that Wade writes and organizes it—or might I say, doesn’t organize it—was not the smooth, satisfying read I was anticipating. 

You would think the amnesia and unknown identity would be the main issue throughout the book, however, Wade moves past it fairly quickly. It’s not even that Jonah suddenly remembers everything—Wade simply moved on to the next problem rather than solving that one. It turns out that there is also a mystery surrounding Jonah’s wife that needs to be solved, which he and Remy work on together. But that’s not all. By the end of the book, there has been amnesia, an attempted murder, a successful murder, a hostage situation, and many additional, tiny mysteries—and keep in mind that the romance is supposed to be the main plot point. 

Along with that, there are also many side characters that Wade goes into detail about. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is not imperative to the story and ends up adding to the confusion.

At some point, the only way I could get through and finish the book was if I started thinking about it like it was a comedy rather than a romance. I just could not take anything seriously because of the way Wade organized all of the various plot points. 

If you were to ask me to give you the gist of the book in one sentence, I would not be able to simply because of how much is crammed into the 400 pages. I especially wouldn’t be able to do it without spoiling anything because most of the mysteries are solved just for another one to appear, which was caused by the one just resolved. 

It would have been a smoother read if Wade focused solely on one problem, whether it be the amnesia of the mystery surrounding his wife or any of the other problems. Instead, she pushed all of it in, which resulted in a confusing and deplorable book.