My Goodreads and Amazon review of Small Forgotten Moments by Annalisa Crawford (Rating 5) – Relentless, Intense, Vivid. Annalisa Crawford’s novel Small Forgotten Moments is the story of Jo, a young artist plagued by an elusive character named Zenna whose image unconsciously dominates her work. Who is this mysterious child-woman, endearing one day, menacing the next? Jo, an amnesiac whose memory goes back no farther than three years, is desperate to find out. So is the reader. In describing Jo’s frustrating and frightening journey to unravel this knot, Crawford’s writing is as fearless as a gothic horror tale. She vividly evokes the hole of amnesia, a demon’s relentless drive, death by drowning, and the omnipotence of a child’s magical thinking. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Crawford’s courage and willingness to make readers squirm. Withholding spoilers, I can say that Zenna’s identity is at once surprising and, given the deftly placed clues, inevitable. Though Jo’s case is freakish, Small Forgotten Moments is ultimately about the universal need to break free of whatever haunts us.
