Book Description:
Published: September 17,2019
Format: Audio/OverDrive
In New York Times bestselling author Nevada Barr’s gripping standalone, a grandmother in her sixties emerges from a mental fog to find she’s trapped in her worst nightmare
Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital gown, her brain in a fog, only to discover that she’s been committed to an Alzheimer’s Unit in a nursing home. With no memory of how she ended up in this position, Rose is sure that something is very wrong. When she overhears one of the administrators saying about her that she’s “not making it through the week,” Rose is convinced that if she’s to survive, she has to get out of the nursing home. She avoids taking her medication, putting on a show for the aides, then stages her escape.
The only problem is—how does she convince anyone that she’s not actually demented? Her relatives were the ones to commit her, all the legal papers were drawn up, the authorities are on the side of the nursing home, and even she isn’t sure she sounds completely sane. But any lingering doubt Rose herself might have had is erased when a would-be killer shows up in her house in the middle of the night. Now Rose knows that someone is determined to get rid of her.
With the help of her computer hacker/recluse sister Marion, thirteen-year old granddaughter Mel, and Mel’s friend Royal, Rose begins to gather her strength and fight back—to find out who is after her and take back control of her own life. But someone out there is still determined to kill Rose, and they’re holding all the cards.
Review –
The author takes a break from her bestselling series about National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon for a one-of-a-kind stand-alone that follows the adventures of a woman committed to a Memory Care Unit for dementia as she fights to claw back her life.
There’s a lot of stuff Rose Dennis doesn’t know. She doesn’t know when and how she got out of Longwood or when and how she arrived there in the first place. She’s surprised and pained when people remind her that although she grew up in New Orleans, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, with Harley, her husband of 15 years, and that he’s died. At one point she’s not even sure whether she’s sixty-eight years old or one-hundred and three. After a pair of orderlies hustle her back to Longwood, however, Rose resolves that it’s the medications she’s being fed that are sapping her powers of mind and will and vows to stop taking them and escape again, this time for keeps. Fortunately, her second attempt takes her to the home of Melanie Dennis, Harley’s levelheaded, resourceful thirteen year-old granddaughter, who’s more than ready to do whatever it takes to keep Gigi, as she calls Rose, two steps ahead of her pursuers. Unfortunately, one of those pursuers, a shadowy man armed with a knife, breaks into the old house where Rose is hiding out and tries to kill her. More adventures follow, some of them involving Rose’s hermit-like sister, Marion Bliss, who offers all the help a life spent online allows, some involving Karen Black, the hapless Longwood nurse Rose gets the better of on three separate occasions. It’s both a nuisance and a personal triumph when the media get hold of Rose’s story and label her “Gun Granny.”
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