Brilliant story about murder, intrigue and lies. Olivia is a psychiatrist trying to help one of her patients who believes he has seen a girl that has been dead for five years. I do not want to reveal too much but that is where it all starts. Very believable characters who you will love and hate. Absolutely recommend this book

A great book I enjoyed reading this, it has many twists and I was guessing right to the end.
I would read more books written by this author.

I just finished reading this book.
Waw! What a wonderful novel full of suspense and twists..
My rate is 4,5 *

Don't Forget Me had a great premise, but was short on delivery. Some of the story seemed like a fuller that didn't belong. The characters were not very well developed.

My podcast partner for Books Don’t Review Themselves, Jessica and I both read Don’t Forget Me by B.C. Schiller, and I ended up giving it two stars where as she ended up giving it four. I thought that was very interesting that we were so far apart on this one. She knew it was only a little over 200 pages to begin with, so she realized it wasn't going to go too in depth into anything. And she also saw it more as like an episode of SUV, with everything fitting in perfectly between the commercial breaks. When you think about it in regards to a TV show I can see people enjoying this book, but there were too many things that put me off.

I know this is a translated book from German, but I feel like a lot of times if a book doesn't get good acclaim, translators get the brunt of the reasons why it wasn't a good book. And I don't feel like that was the case in this story. I know German can be a very harsh sounding language and Germans are often portrayed as not very emotional people, and this book definitely came across that way. It’s fine if some of the characters are that way, but almost every single character was or else they really didn’t have any emotion at all. The main character’s husband and daughter are missing. and it's just like it was a side note in the story or something written in the synopsis to draw the reader in. She was not emotional about this at all, which I mean some people aren't, but I thought that was very strange. I could not sympathize with any of the characters and that makes it really hard for me to enjoy a book.

The other thing that I didn't necessarily enjoy is when you read the synopsis, it starts out; five cards, five messages, five years. And it goes on to read like she is going to be finding what happened to her family because it may be related to the killing in Don’t Forget Me. So I'm thinking that the book is more about that, and besides her getting the card at the beginning of the book, it's only talked about very briefly towards the end of the book. And to me, to have a synopsis talking about one thing and then have the book barely be about that at all does not endear me to it.

The other thing that stood out was the dialogue. It was very flat and one dimensional. There was no depth behind it, and it often felt awkward. And the final thing that got me with this book was that I felt like the authors/editor/publisher/someone realized this wasn’t the best book but they figured if they just but in a bunch of outrageous and disturbing things in the reader would overlook everything else and consider this a thrilling book. And the amusing thing is I enjoy outrageous and disturbing in a story… if it’s done well.

This is the first book in the series and the way Don’t Forget Me ends in a cliffhanger, you know that in the next book they will (hopefully) be focusing on why the husband and daughter went missing. But for me, at that point it was too little, too late. If someone whose opinion I trust were to read more by them and recommended it, I might give one of their books another chance, but I won’t be in a hurry to try any of their other books otherwise.

The title and the synopsis drew my attention to this book, although thrillers are one of my two favourite genres. On the whole it was a good story, but there was something about this book that didn't quite make the mark. I will no doubt read more by this author in time to come.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my copy. This is my honest review, voluntarily given.


(Waiting for Amazon to publish my review).

Don’t Forget Me is an entertaining and well written suspense. A great plot with many twists and turns. I highly recommend this book.. I received an arc from the publisher and Netgalley and this is my unbiased review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read, read it in one sitting, I just couldn’t put it down. Levi Kant used to be the Chief of the Serious Crime Squad until he got shot, just as he was getting close to solving a case he had been working on, the death of 14 year old Lisa Manz. At 55 he is now a lecturer at the police academy, after he refused to take retirement. The Lisa Manz case is the one case he really wanted to solve, he was obsessed with it, it had nearly ended his marriage to his wife Rebecca. He promised he would never look at the files again, but can he keep that promise?

Psychiatrist Olivia Hoffman has had a rough few years, 5 years ago her husband Michael and daughter Juli, just disappeared and haven’t been seen since. But every year on the anniversary of their disappearance, Olivia receives a card saying I’m sorry, but who is it from? She fell apart when they first disappeared, letting herself go, but now she is kept busy with her own private clinic a couple of days a week, as well as looking after her father who has Alzheimer’s. One of her patients Jonathon Stade comes to see her and tells her that Lisa Manz is alive, he has seen her, this case had been in the papers, as Lisa had somehow escaped from a secure Psychiatric unit, but hadn’t been reported missing for 4 days, then her charred body had turned up. Jonathon shows Olivia a picture he took on his phone, but it’s too blurred to tell if it is actually Lisa, he then goes on to tell her that he has her back pack at his place, but he can’t bring it to her as it’s too risky she must come to his to see it. When Olivia arrives at his apartment block, the next morning, Jonathon is at the window agitated, Olivia is sure she sees someone behind him, she shouts up that she is coming to talk to him, but by the time she does he is on the ground outside, Olivia rushes back down to see if there is anything she can do, but he is already dead. She has to explain to the police what happened, one of them knows that Kant had worked the case, and gives him a call, but his superiors are not impressed.

Olivia and Kant decide to join forces, to prove that Jonathon did not murder Lisa, and then commit suicide, but to do this it could mean treading on some toes, and getting into some tight spots. Lisa’s father is a control freak, and the mother is a failed actress who had blamed Lisa for her failing. If Lisa didn’t do as she was told the father sent her off to the clinic. Not exactly a loving family. What experiment’s were being done on Lisa? Why did Nils Wagner head of the psychiatric clinic threaten Olivia? What does he have to hide?.

This is a really engaging story, the characters Kant and Hoffman are likeable and relatable, we still don’t know what happened to Olivia’s husband and daughter but that has been left open for book two. There was one part of the story which was written beautifully as it told of Kant’s, Jewish grandmother and how she had evaded capture by the Gestapo.

I would like to thank #netgalley and # Thomas&Mercer for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

I really loved this book. I read it in one day at the airport and it was the perfect read for that setting. It was engaging. It was fast paced. It had good dialogue. The mystery kept me guessing at every turn. What's amazing to me is that the story is written by a husband and wife who live in Germany. It did not read like a book written by two people and I think that made me love it more. The synopsis is a little misleading in that it makes the reader think you are looking into Olivia's story more. However, I loved where the book went and, since it is labeled as Levi Kant #1, I am hoping there are more books so that I will be able to learn more of Olivia's story down the line. I loved the setting of Vienna and the mystery was great. I never was even close to guessing the real story. I will definitely be reading more novels from this very famous German writing duo!! 4 stars from me!!

If I had noticed beforehand that "Don’t Forget Me" was a translated work, I probably wouldn’t have requested it. Even the best translations are like Mike Teavee in "Willy Wonka" getting sent over the airwaves; something gets lost along the way that can never be regained again (even through extreme stretching).
But only so many of these books faults can be chalked up to not being read in its original language.
The plot is average at best, a clear cold-case-come-up-again story with amateur detectives. It’s relatively easy, throughout the story, for the main characters to get to the bottom of things. They rarely even have to ask a witness twice before they’re spilling their guts, even though it’s clear that the two MCs have no authority to be asking these questions or investigating the case. There’s very little suspense built up and with so few twists and turns, the plot becomes so clear-cut that you can see most things coming from a mile away.
Even if a surprising plot was not my number one need in a thriller (which it is…), I would have had trouble being invested when I didn’t care about the characters. There’s barely any time spent on characterizing them beyond telling the reader what cliche roles they fill in the story; psychiatrist with a troubled past, obsessive ex-policeman, etc. But there’s so little to go off of that they barely even fill out these tropes. We’re still getting tidbits about them and their backstories over three-quarters of the way through the book. All but these main characters come and go depending on whether they are being interviewed or not, which means that everyone ends up being (very obviously) a means of furthering the plot and never felt like real emotional beings.
This was only made worse by the dialogue. The robotic voice of every character I can, perhaps, blame on translation, but the utter lack of dialogue tags and the sheer amount of speech rather than description can’t be. The story makes reference at one point to certain sections being dialogue-heavy because it’s trying to mimic a script, and although this might be an interesting concept, it doesn’t actually relate to the story enough to work even if it was done well (and it isn’t). As it is, there is so little description, not only of the characters but of everything, that the story feels incredibly hollow and falls into that terrible category of way too much tell and not enough show.
I wish that, amongst all these negatives, I could point out a positive, but reading this book for me was a chore, like doing the laundry or scrubbing the toilet. From start to finish it felt like something I needed to check off my to-do list, and looking forward to this feeling of accomplishment was the only thing that spurred me through the short chapters.
I rated "Don’t Forget Me" 1 out of 5 stars, making it my lowest rated book of the year. I would not recommend it to anyone who is not a die-hard, have-already-read-everything-else thriller fan. I can only hope (assume) that it is much better in its original German form.

A new to me author, the synopsis of this book sounded really promising. However, as much as it was enjoyable and I finished the book, I felt it was really lacking in something.

The book is relatively short and although I liked the idea of the story, there wasn’t enough excitement and suspense for me. Perhaps this could be a language issue as this book is a translation, or it could be because it is entering the current market of crime/thriller books that are full of suspense and intrigue.

To me, it felt like there was more to come from this book and perhaps there will be if the authors are to write a sequel.

Psychiatrist Olivia Hofmann witnesses one of her clients being pushed out of an upstairs window. She was there because the young man said he had something that belonged to a girl who was murdered 5 years earlier and whose killer was never found.

Levi Kant was the lead investigator on that case, but was pulled off when he was shot while looking into another case. He spent months in the hospital, and the police department offered him early retirement or a lecturing job at the university for the police. He has never forgotten the girl who was murdered.

When Olivia reaches out to Kant, they team up to find some answers. But re-opening this case will put them both in danger. Someone doesn't want this case solved .. and will do anything to protect their secrets.

This is well written with a shout out to the translator for doing a bang up job. There is much more to the story than just the murdered woman. Many suspects keep the reader guessing. Some characters are quite likeable .. some are just plain evil. The murdered girl's diary goes a long way in learning who her killer was.

There's also a history of Olivia .... her husband and young daughter disappeared 5 years ago. Once a year, she receives a post card .. no message .. but she knows who's sending them.

Although there is no cliff hanger, the ending does suggest where Book 2 will begin.

Many thanks to the author / Amazon Publishing UK / Netgalley for the advanced digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

This is an OK story, but along with the plot it's very naive. The characters are good, but the dialogue seems unnatural. There's also some jumping around in time and POV that's not natural to the progression in the story, and there's even some stuff from WWII that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. In short, the book is readable, but strange.

Levi Kant #1

Every year Olivia receives a postcard from her missing husband and daughter. All that's written on it is "I'm sorry". They have been missing for five years. Their disappearance caused Olivua to have a mental breakdown. Lisa Manz was murdered five years ago. Lisa has been turned beyond recognition. Her killer was never found. Olivia is a psychiatrist and one of her patients tells her he has seen Lisa Manz. Olivia becomes curious about the case. She meets the former police investigator of the case, Levi Kant. The two of them join forces to find out what happened to Lisa.

I don't know if it's because this book was translated but I felt there was something missing. The characters were a little wooden. The only likeable character was Levi. It's quite a short book but it took me longer to read because of the dialogue. The story ended with a cliffhanger. I will read the next book in this series.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK and the author B.C. Schiller for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Great book ! Thank you for letting me read an early copy ! A 5 year old unsolved murder case. A patient who makes a statement to his psychiatrist. Another "suspicious" death. How do they all relate ? You have to read to find out ! Lots of mystery and intrigue. Great characters ! And stories within the story. #buythebook

Five years ago, psychiatrist Olivia Hofmann's husband and daughter disappeared without a trace. That same year, a troubled young girl escaped from a treatment facility and was later found murdered in a quarry outside of Vienna. Olivia gets a postcard every year to commemorate the disappearance, and on the fifth anniversary, one of her patients mention that the dead girl is actually back from the dead. When he seems to commit suicide, tying up the case neatly, it doesn't sit right with Olivia or the original inspector of the case, Levi Kant. The more they look into the dead girl's history, the more the killer wants the case to remain closed. Is the truth worth their lives?

The novel takes place in Vienna, Austria. Punctuation and spelling follow British convention, and there are some differences in how doctors and police are treated. The reason for this is that Barbara and Christian Schiller wrote their crime thrillers in German, which were then translated to English. In addition, their translator Annette Charpentier, Ph.D. was born in Germany and currently lives in Wales. There are cultural differences for our American readers so that some of the police seemed especially standoffish and dismissive of others' concerns.

There seem to be two threads in this novel, one of Lisa Manz's murder that was being covered up quite deliberately by multiple people in charge that were willing to threaten Olivia's career as well as Levi's. The other that is mentioned several times was the disappearance of Olivia's family, though that is never actually solved. I'm sure that's not a spoiler, given that there is a whole series of Levi Kant novels that the Schiller team had written in Germany. I found it difficult to like most of the characters, and the mystery of Lisa's murder didn't hold my attention much. It revolved around abuses from her parents, who were too self-involved to care for each other let alone a child, as well as the medical staff. Putting an Alzheimer's patient at risk also soured me on the plot; I really don't like putting the mentally ill or infirm at risk in stories because they're an already vulnerable population that is vilified and abused enough in real life.

I believe this is a solidly written novel and had been well translated into English. I wanted to like this novel a lot more than I actually did, but it was so difficult to get to know the main characters. I didn't feel as though I had a real connection with them, and they were put into one terrible situation after another to further the plot. Maybe this is the age-old problem of introducing the main characters and setting up their backstory, and future novels in this series would be better to get to see them at their best.

A well written and easy flowing crime thriller. From the first page I was hooked and just had to keep on reading. A burnt body of a young girl and a father and daughter have gone missing. Red herrings which had me tapping my kindle faster and faster I HAD TO KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!! Creepy, dark and as for the climax WOW. I have found two new authors and I am now searching for more of their work. A five star read and highly recommended.
I would like to thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, B.C. Schiller, and Amazon Publishing UK for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

New to the world of the husband-wife duo calling themselves B.C. Schiller, I was not sure what to expect. The short dust jacket blurb had me intrigued about this novel, though I was not entirely confident this had ‘translated’ onto the written page, if you will pardon the pun. Dr. Olivia Hofmann nervously checks the post and discovers yet another postcard with an apology and no more. It has been five years since Dr. Hofmann’s husband and young daughter have disappeared without a trace, which coincides with the brutal murder and incineration of a teenage girl, Lisa Manz. While meeting one of her clients, Hofmann discovers that he is holding onto a rucksack belonging the Manz and might have key answers to the crime, or be the murderer himself. When Hofmann agrees to meet him at his home the following day, she watched him fall from his second storey window, a shadowy figure seen pushing him. Dr. Hofmann reaches out to her acquaintance, Levi Kant, who was the detective on the Manz case, but who was removed close to its resolution when he was shot by another perpetrator. Armed not only with the rucksack, but also a diary that Lisa kept, Hofmann and Kant begin trying to piece things together, including discovering who this mystery ‘doctor’ was who is mentioned in the diary and is surely involved in abusing Lisa Manz. When someone targets Hofmann with a vehicle, trying to wipe her out, the panic level increases, but nothing will stop Kant from revealing the truth, something he has wanted to discover for the last number of years. A decent piece of crime work, though it did not jump off the page for me. I suppose those who enjoy quick thrillers will want to give this a try, though I cannot see it being catapulted to the top of many to-be-read lists.

As this was my first experience with B.C. Schiller crime writing, I have no outside context other than this novel. While the premise was good, I was left wanting much more, as I could not help feeling the entire experience was a tad beige for me. There seems to be a race for protagonist here, between Dr. Olivia Hofmann and Levi Kant. Hofmann takes centre stage early and the reader learns about her agonising confusion about a missing child and husband, though she seems to have been able to focus on her work. In an industry that has little downtime, Hofmann must juggle her patients and a mentally ill father, whose acuity is diminishing by the day. Still, she finds time to break away and join this impromptu investigation into the death of a teenager. Levi Kant, on the other hand, was one of Vienna’s great detectives, only to have his work come crashing down when a bullet entered his leg. Now teaching at the police academy, he has always wondered about that one case that slipped through his fingers. With a Jewish backstory that some may find intriguing, Kant is also a man of many passions in his current life, which he shares throughout. Others find their way directing the story in their own way, some effectively and others simply popping up to play their part and evaporating again. The story was decent and I cannot be entirely sure if the plot’s strength was ‘lost in translation’ or if I am simply setting the bar too high. I did not dislike the book entirely, but I had hoped for a more meatier tale to keep me fully captivated. The chapters were short and I flew through the book in short order, so I cannot say it was a laborious task whatsoever. I’d likely give the series another try, should something else be published, but I am not making any promises.

Kudos, Mr. and Mrs. Schiller, for a decent plot. While the delivery was not there for me, I may be asking too much all at once.

I didn't like Olivia. I feel like apart from the disappearance there was nothing fleshed out about her character. Some of the other characters were more interesting. An okay read.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of Don't Forget Me, this is my honest review.
It flowed nicely and was easy to get into right from the start. Some of the passages seemed somewhat irrelevant to the rest of the story. The main story was solved in the end but the secondary plot was left with a cliffhanger. Overall, I enjoyed this book .