From the acclaimed author of The Clinic and The Bridesmaid comes a pulse pounding thriller following a criminologist who wakes in a remote motel with no memory of how she got there, or the people who claim they will protect her.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Before I Disappear by Cate Quinn, which releases on November 10th 2026.
Criminologist April Anderson wakes up in a remote motel with a new name, a new identity, and absolutely no memory of how she got there. Told she’s under police protection as the victim of a disturbing crime, she’ll have to stand as a witness on a major trial that she knows nothing about. April isn’t sure who to trust — the cop guarding her from an unknown threat, or the fiancé secretly tracking her.
As April’s memories start coming back in waves, she discovers a side to herself she didn’t know existed. A side she’d rather stay hidden.
With the trial drawing closer, the need for her to remember everything that happened to her the night of the crime becomes vital to her survival. But someone wants her silent, and her missing memories may be the only thing keeping her alive. Will she remember the truth… or disappear forever?
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
There’s a moment between sleep and waking when the realities that tether your life are unfixed. Your future is a set of turning reels, spooling out threads like Fates. Just in that moment, you could be anyone. And right now, as I wake to this unfamiliar bedroom, my first thought is I’ve failed to fully unstick from sleep. None of this is real. I don’t know who I am. As I blink my eyes open, the threads of possible futures are scythed away by an unseen knife.
The bed I lie on is made of knotty pine, with tangerine-hued varnish. A patchwork comforter tucked tight into the corners fails to keep out a noticeable chill to the air. The bare expanse of cream walls has been half-heartedly domesticated with a couple of chintzy pictures. I blink awake, trying to figure how I’ve been transported from the New York apartment to this strangely homespun room.
I’m used to traveling for work, delivering guest lectures as an associate professor of criminology for NYU. But this isn’t like any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. There’s a flickering pain in my head as I try to put the pieces together. The last thing I remember is standing in front of students, speaking about the links between crime and poverty. Now I’m here.
My head hurts, and there’s a slight patchy quality to my vision. Like reality is coming at a slower speed.
Did I drink too much at a conference? Unlikely. My fiancé, Chris, calls me “nauseatingly healthy” – and he’s not wrong. I was a track scholarship kid. Still train like I’m in college.
I pull back the bedclothes and look down. I’m dressed in a colorless gray T-shirt and equally faded sweatpants. Nothing I remember owning or purchasing. Panic is creeping in, and I have to fight it down. The last thing I remember wearing was a dress, blazer, and ankle boots combination from Bloomingdale’s.
Why am I dressed in different clothes?
The large room with its dated furnishings suggests my location is off a highway or in a backwater town – someplace land is cheap and glamour is absent. A homey kind of morel, I decide, looking back to the careless choice of wall art. There’s an illustration of a red barn in a cornfield and an oil painting of a steel windmill against a blue sky. Very different from my city apartment with my contemporary artwork and vintage couch strewn with my criminology lecture notes and heavy legal tomes.
My gaze lands on the pine bedside table. There’s a purse on it, which isn’t mine. A shiny faux brown crocodile skin with thick, rounded straps – about as far from my regular battered leather purse in style as is possible to be. I lean across to the bedside table and pull it toward me, pushing away my unease at snooping. Attached to the side by a thin strip of fabric is a plastic pocket, which houses a photo ID-a driver’s license with a familiar face. I swallow hard.
The woman in the picture is me.
But she isn’t me.
My hair is blond. I wear it in a practical ponytail, swept back in a way that tends to emphasize the almond shape of my green eyes. I look at the picture. All my life I’ve been told my face has a sculpted or angular quality – sometimes in a tone like it wasn’t all the way a compliment. Symmetry without softness. Beauty without sufficient demurral.
This picture shows me with brown hair, cut shoulder length with straight bangs, and a haunted expression.
My hair was never brown.
There’s a cheap little mirror swinging next to the ID pocket, and I lift it to catch my reflection. I stare in shock. My face in the mirror marches the picture in the ID.
My once-blond hair is now brown. Like the photo.
I lift a piece of brown hair in disbelief and peer at my bangs in the mirror. Images of my blonder self flash through my mind. I have no memory of changing my hair or even considering it. I’ve worn it the same way since graduating from college.
I stare, mesmerized, at the dark strands. There is nothing, no memory at all, of how my appearance changed. Just a floating void where the memories should be.
I’m in a room I don’t recognize, with an ID saying I’m someone else, and my appearance has been completely altered.
I read the name on the ID, my lips moving.
My name is April Anderson. Bur here, in bold text, it reads CONNIE LOGAN.
A name I have no memory of and feel no affinity with. The back of my head aches, and there’s a band of pressure around my skull. My first logical thought is I have been drugged and abducted. I once gave a lecture about the subtle clues to spot women in the grip of human traffickers. Frightening feelings foam in my brain as I try to remember my own advice.
Get out. Get to a safe place. Call for help.
I sit up and look around the room. That’s when I see there’s a man sitting in the corner.
I stifle a small cry and scoot back against the headboard.
He wears a police uniform and lies back against a white painted rocking chair in the corner. His eyes are closed, and he is snoring faintly.
From the badge on his arm, it looks like he’s a New York cop. I live in New York. That must mean something. But my mind won’t cognate past a pulsing need to get out of the room before he wakes up.
Slowly I slide my feet out of bed. One by one they settle on the creaking planks of the floor.
Standing makes my head spin, and I steady myself.
The policeman’s snores stop. Holding my breath, I rise to a standing position and pause. His breathing deepens, and he shifts in his sleep.
I slip silently to the door and slide my hand around the little round brass handle. The door is locked.
I look toward the policeman, slumbering in his rocker. Behind him is a window. The view outside is autumn trees. A wide dun-colored sky. In the middle distance is a rust-red tractor, wheels sunk deep into the dirt.
Definitely not New York City. Ground floor.
Something else catches my eye. On a table next to the slumbering policeman is his unstrapped holster, with a gun inside, and what looks to be my U.S. passport. Or what’s left of it. It’s been neatly cut in two. I lean over the remains, mesmerized.
The laminated picture of me, green-eyed with its slightly quizzical smile and blond ponytail, rests in pieces, and a slash of thick black pen stroke slices the front.
I pick up the sheared halves, exposing a flurry of international stamps in the fluttering pages.
The destruction has a tidy, administrative feel. Nothing personal, we’ve just ended your existence. The laceration divides my name into equal squares.
Dr. April.
Anderson.
My entire identity has been snipped into pieces.
Before I can process this, the policeman is suddenly awake. Some kind of latent muscle memory kicks in. Instinctively I grab for his gun holster on the table. His eyes widen as he realizes I’m diving for the weapon. He’s fast but not fast enough. I grab his gun, pull it free, cock it with an alacrity that I didn’t know I had. ”
Freeze!” I shout, channeling every cop movie I know. “Put your hands in the air!”
He raises his hands, eyes on my face. Kind eyes, I notice. Trustworthy.
“Easy.” His voice catches, still thick with sleep. He clears his throat. “It’s OK, April,” he says.
“Who are you and how do you know my name?” I demand. I train the gun squarely on his chest.
“I’m Detective Hollister of the NYPD Organized Crime Force,” he says, arms still raised. “You witnessed a crime, April.” He pauses, his eyes soft with pity. “You’re under witness protection.”
