Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not (2025) is a mystery novel by Stacy Willingham. The story follows freelance reporter Claire Campbell as she confronts the fallout of the death of her older sister Natalie 22 years before. Loose ends around the investigation require Claire to investigate the last place Natalie worked: A muscadine vineyard named Galloway Farm. There, she uncovers a hidden diary that holds long-buried secrets about the past and a cultish commune that once stayed on the property, changing her life forever. The book explores The Negative Impacts of Childhood Neglect, The Deceptive Nature of Appearances, and The Danger of Trusting Strangers.

Willingham is the author of three other mysteries: A Flicker in the Dark (2021), All the Dangerous Things (2023),and Only If You’re Lucky (2024).

This guide uses the 2025 Minotaur Books hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death; emotional abuse; child death; graphic violence; suicidal ideation, substance use; sexual content; child abuse.

Plot Summary

Claire Campbell is haunted by the murder of her older sister Natalie, which occurred when Claire was 11. Now an adult working in New York City as a journalist, she’s been passed over for a deserved promotion, and winds up quitting her job, despite her attachment to her work and her coworker Ryan. At a party for Ryan, Claire’s dad calls to explain Annaliese—his ex-wife and Claire’s mother—has injured herself in a fall. Claire decides to return to her remote hometown of Claxton, South Carolina.

After reuniting with Annaliese, Claire discovers an undeveloped roll of film and some old pictures of Natalie’s, including one of her sisters smiling at Galloway Farm, a vineyard where she once worked. When Claire overhears Annaliese tell her ex-husband that she doesn’t want Claire there, a hurt Claire leaves. She drops off the film to be developed and heads off to Galloway Farm. She’s greeted by Liam, the handsome manager. Claire takes a job there since it comes with pay, room, and board. The owner, Mitchell Galloway, welcomes her.

Claire lies to Annaliese and says she’s returning to the city. Instead, she settles in at Galloway, where she becomes worried about Marcia, Mitchell’s disoriented and silent wife. Cleaning the guest house, Claire discovers Marcia’s old diary hidden in a vent. Claire learns that teenage Marcia’s parents were extremely protective and Marcia hid her relationship with Mitchell from them. He tells Marcia she’s pretty and special and convinces her to follow his iconoclast views. Claire learns that Marcia often met Mitchell in his orange camper to do drugs and have sex. When Marcia finds a University of California-Berkeley sweatshirt in the camper, he explains he studied psychology there until he realized college was a scam. He tells Marcia he knows she’s lonely and lost but he can see her true self buried within. He wants her to meet his other friends. Marcia’s words keep Claire awake since she finds Mitchell manipulative.

Claire asks Liam for more information. Liam agrees Mitchell’s a bit of an enigma. He knows Mitchell bought the farm’s 50 acres in the 1980s, but this business owner persona doesn’t jibe with how Marcia described Mitchell in the diary. Later, Claire looks up the property records. Mitchell bought the property from Steven Montague. While Claire can’t trace Montague, an internet search shows that Marcia Rayburn was reported missing in March 1984.

Marcia’s diary continues. On her first visit to the farm, she meets a girl named Lily, who gives an official tour, explaining how they cook over a campfire, bathe in the river, and take turns sleeping in Mitchell’s camper. Annie and Montana are also among the extended “family” who stay there. After reading the diary, Claire wonders if Mitchell is somehow dangerous. The next day, Claire is bitten by a copperhead. Mitchell treats the snakebite and gives Claire a mug of natural painkiller. Later, Claire starts to suspect Mitchell is drugging people, but her bite is much better and she wonders if her suspicions are unfounded.

Back in March,1984, Lily insists Marcia should permanently stay at the farm. Marcia asks Lily why she stays and Lily explains that she was raised in foster care. This is home. Later, Lily reveals that Annie will no longer be around, telling Marcia she left because she was never truly committed to the “family.”

Claire is trying to figure out if Annie is another victim when Liam arrives with coffee. He tells her she needs to rest. When Mitchell leaves to get supplies in town, Claire hurries to talk to Marcia, who she finds drugged and sound asleep. Claire searches the house, discovering a duffel bag that contains a Berkeley sweatshirt, Montague’s wallet, the deed, and a gun. She’s almost caught by a returning Mitchell but an incoming storm provides a distraction. She replaces everything and sneaks back to the guesthouse with the gun.

She calls Ryan and explains that she believes Mitchell is holding Marcia captive, may have harmed Montague and perhaps, even Natalie. Ryan worries she’s jumping to conclusions. He pleads with her to come back to New York, but she says she has to investigate the truth. At that moment, the power goes out. Claire reads Marcia’s diary until her phone’s flashlight dies. In the diary, Marcia has realized that the family breaks into houses in nearby towns to get supplies rather than shopping at stores. In one such house, Lily points out a photo of a healthy, well-kempt Annie with her husband. Marcia realizes that she’d previously thought that Annie didn’t leave by choice and that she has been gullible.

Liam visits and tells Claire that the downpour cancels the work schedule for that day and the next. He’s brought some muscadine wine to share. Claire tells him about Natalie, and Liam sympathizes. The following day, Claire goes to a Ladmadaw restaurant to power her devices. She calls UC-Berkeley and learns that Mitchell was never a student. The woman on the phone tells her that the same year, 1984, a young woman named Katherine Ann Prichard disappeared. Investigating, Claire quickly learns Katherine drove a camper.

Claire decides to go to the Claxton Police Department to talk to Chief Eric DiNello and tell him she has new information on her sister’s case. DiNello points out Jeffrey Slater, Natalie’s coworker at Galloway, was convicted long ago. DiNello tells her to tell her mom, Annie, hello. Claire suddenly realizes Annaliese was part of the commune. She calls her mother, saying she needs to know the truth about Galloway Farm and reveals she’s staying there.

To Claire’s disappointment, the developed film roll shows no new pictures of Natalie. She is determined to find Katherine’s camper in the woods after night falls and collect evidence to help Marcia escape. She tries to give the older woman clues before heading back to the guesthouse to read the diary. In April,1984, on one of their raids, Marcia discovers she’s pregnant and asks Lily to help her escape. Lily takes a candid picture of Marcia but Marcia tells her to take the roll out of the camera. She doesn’t want to be implicated. Lily has also discovered a gun. The owner of the house, a police officer named Carmen, unexpectedly comes home and offers to help the girls escape Mitchell. To Marcia’s horror, Lily shoots her dead.

Claire finds the rusted camper and takes pictures of the plates. However, as she gathers her things in the guesthouse, Liam accosts her with the gun. He marches Claire to the property’s shed and chains her to a workbench. He isn’t the manager after all, but Mitchell’s son. Liam tells Claire that, in 2002, when Claire and her parents came to visit, Annaliese realized Mitchell was the owner and made Natalie quit, revealing that he was Natalie’s father and a dangerous man. Natalie continued to sneak out to meet Liam, planning to rescue him from Galloway. Liam locks Claire in the shed.

Claire manages to break the board below the workbench and slide out of the chain’s hold. She finds some garden shears and hides them behind her before anyone returns. Marcia enters and Claire is filled with hope until Mitchell and Liam follow. Claire realizes the woman in front of her is not actually Marcia—but Lily. Mitchell approaches Claire holding a mug, the contents of which will kill her. Claire condemns Mitchell for killing the mother of his son and his daughter, too. Lily defends him by saying blood relation doesn’t guarantee family ties. Claire appeals to Liam, telling him it isn’t his fault that Natalie was killed. Mitchell contradicts her, blaming Liam. Claire realizes Liam is the prisoner in the family. When Mitchell comes closer, Claire fatally stabs him in the neck. Lily runs to him, screaming for Liam to shoot Claire.

Liam turns to point the gun at Lily instead, but Claire talks him out of using it. Liam locks both Lily and Mitchell inside the shed. He explains how Natalie, realizing it was Katherine’s camper, went to DiNello but he drove Natalie back to Mitchell’s, where he and Mitchell let Lily give Natalie the poisoned tea. DiNello, who was once Montana on Mitchell’s farm, blackmailed Liam into staying quiet.

A car approaches down the road. It’s Annaliese, coming to help. Annaliese, Claire, and Liam drive to the police department of another town, where Liam confesses. As they wait, Annaliese explains her involvement with Mitchell to Claire and reveals that when Katherine planned to return to Berkeley, Lily was afraid Mitchell would leave with her. She poisoned Katherine. Annaliese, seeing the danger to herself, escaped later by going out a back door of one of the homes they raided. Claire asks why her mother never confided in her; Annaliese says she needed Claire to be far away, somewhere safe. Overwhelmed with emotion, Claire then reads the last pages of the diary. Ever since the day of Carmen’s murder, Marcia has planned to leave with baby Liam. Marcia hides her diary and the roll of film, then returns to the house where Lily gives her a mug of tea.

Six months later, Claire’s expose of Lily and Mitchell is front pages news. After Liam confessed to the police, they all went to Galloway Farm, where Lily was arrested. The authorities found the bodies of Marcia, Steven, and Natalie under the floorboards of the shed. The Campbells have a funeral for Natalie. Jeffrey Slater is freed while DiNello is prosecuted. Liam reunited with his grandparents, the Rayburns, and was never charged since he was only a minor when Natalie died. Claire is now happily cohabitating with Ryan in New York City and in contact with both her mother and Liam.