Angel Falls

The recurring motif of memory—as well as its opposite—lies at the heart of the novel, driving the plot and exploring whether identity and love are constructs of the past or products of conscious, present-day choices. Mikaela’s retrograde amnesia is acts as a thematic crucible that strips away 15 years of her life and compels her to confront a past self who was still in love with Julian True. The central conflict arises from this erasure of her lived reality with Liam, and Hannah uses the novel’s premise to pose the question of whether a couple’s connection can survive without the shared memories that built their relationship. In the process of recovering from her catastrophic failure of memory, Mikaela also evaluates the true nature of love. Torn between the idealized, remembered passion for a celebrity she remembers and the tangible, stable partnership with a man she has forgotten, she can only rebuild her family’s stability when she makes the active choice to rebuild her life with Liam, the husband who has always been there for her.

The pillowcase holding Mikaela’s memorabilia of her life with Julian stands as a symbol of her suppressed past and unresolved secrets. A tangible object containing the life she left behind, it functions as a Pandora’s box for the Campbell family.