FICTION

The Memory Dress

Berkley. Nov. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9780593436837. pap. $19. F
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Introverted Jayne is doing her best to withdraw from life after a bad breakup with a boyfriend. She lives alone in a flat in the English city of Bath, works as a dog walker, and doesn’t interact much with the people around her. Then she meets her neighbor Meredith Chalis, a grandmotherly older woman living in a highly unkempt apartment. Jayne happens to spy among Meredith’s belongings a gorgeous couture gown; attached to it is a note declaring the gown a gift to Meredith from Princess Diana. Meredith is waiting for her husband, William, to come home and thinks Jayne is her daughter, Fiona. Yet neither William nor Fiona is anywhere to be found, and it soon becomes clear to Jayne that Meredith has dementia and shouldn’t be living alone. Jayne rallies to Meredith’s side and musters the support of their fellow neighbors to help find Meredith’s lost family, plus solve the mystery of Diana’s couture gown and how it relates to Meredith’s past.
VERDICT Readers who enjoy dual-timeline novels will enjoy Beer’s (The Last Dress from Paris) latest, which also includes a sweet, low-key romance for Jayne.
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