Heather Webber, the bestselling author of MIDNIGHT AT THE BLACKBIRD CAFÉ and AT THE COFFEE SHOP OF CURIOSITIES, returns with THE FORGET-ME-NOT LIBRARY, her most spellbinding, tender novel yet.

Welcome to the town of Forget-Me-Not, Alabama! The locals are all colorful characters, each deeply in tune with their neighbors and the needs of the community. From Maeve, the woman who started her own respite center after caring for a sick loved one, to Isabel and Nettie, locals who consider themselves the town fixers and matchmakers, and even Uncle Renny, who has always been there for everyone, Forget-Me-Not is full of magic. However, the real fantasy doesn’t come from its helpful residents, but from its community hub: the Forget-Me-Not Library.

Named after a town legend of love lost, found and lost again, the Forget-Me-Not Library has become a place to seek guidance, study or learn new skills, play games and share stories…and regain lost memories. You see, the library boasts a feature that you won’t find in any Dewey Decimal system. For years, stray cats with golden eyes have appeared at the library, one coming to stay until another takes its post, and they have the power to heal through their book suggestions.

"Written with a dash of magical realism, relatable characters with real-world problems, and a whole lot of heart, THE FORGET-ME-NOT LIBRARY is simply unforgettable."

When a cat --- in this iteration, it’s Deckle --- nudges a book off a shelf and toward a patron, and that person takes a deep whiff of its pages, it gifts them with a memory they need to revisit. Whether it’s a deceased loved one you want to relive a few moments with, or a reminder of a beloved vacation destination that you’ve longed to return to, the books selected by the library’s cats are always just what the customer needs, and usually when they least expect it. But this, of course, is a secret known only to the locals.

Juliet Nightingale is a woman on the run. Only months ago, she and her beloved grandfather were taking a walk when they were struck by lightning in a freak accident, landing them in the hospital. Juliet, unlike her grandfather, was lucky to survive, but she’s not undamaged. Ever since the incident, she cannot remember anything from her childhood, or a single thing about her grandfather, even from the more recent days before the accident. Knowing that she has to essentially rebuild herself is bad enough. But worse is the discovery that, while she can’t exactly remember being raised by her parents, she can tell that she has a deep-seated need to impress them and get their attention, which couldn’t have developed out of nowhere.

Juliet is beginning to realize that she is a stereotypical middle child, and her ambitious parents don’t seem to really know or care about her beyond the necessary familial obligation. So if she can’t trust them to help her find herself --- and her mother’s pushy “suggestions” about her life aren’t helping --- how can she ever remember who she was, or who she wants to be? The answer, she hopes, lies in recreating a road trip her grandfather took in his youth, preserved only in his photographs. But life is not done throwing Juliet curveballs, and that is how she winds up taking a windy detour, watching her check engine light flash on and screaming silently as blue smoke erupts from her hood. She can only hope that the family whose house her car has broken down in front of is nice.

Of course, everyone in Forget-Me-Not is nice, and they all know that no one arrives in their magical town by accident. Visitors are drawn in by their own emotional states, each of them encountering a strange transportation malfunction that effectively shipwrecks them in town until they have healed. The color of the smoke tells locals what the person needs and how they can help them recover and move on. Blue smoke, the color of loss, is one shade with which Tallulah Byrd Mayfield is all too familiar.

Recently divorced and returning to the town where she spent her happiest days with her grandparents, Lu is losing it: control, her ability to comfort her daughter after yet another deadbeat dad excuse, and her willingness to build something of her own after losing everything in the divorce. Fiercely independent, Lu struggled to let her grandfather help babysit her two girls. But as much as she loves being back in Forget-Me-Not and working in the library, she’s terrified of encountering her own memories through the furry librarian. She does not want to look back on her failed marriage or the opportunities she has missed, and now having to tend to a visitor will throw her own choices into harsh relief.

Written with a dash of magical realism, relatable characters with real-world problems, and a whole lot of heart, THE FORGET-ME-NOT LIBRARY is simply unforgettable. Both an ode to the power of libraries and a championing of the necessity of community, this is a tender, sweet book for our times, an antidote to the news reels and headlines that still doesn’t shy away from the hard truths of life, love and grief. Heather Webber has crafted two wholly original, living, breathing, capital-W Women in Juliet and Lu. Their journeys of grief, love and identity are compulsively readable, both realistic and inspiring.

But let’s not forget the supporting characters, who are like a warm, cozy hug enveloping you as you read. Katy, Lu's seven-year-old daughter, is the book’s heartbeat. Her beloved neighbors all offer something to the reader, whether it’s a laugh, cleaning tricks, or a piece of earth-shattering wisdom you’ve never heard put so clearly.

Perfect for holiday and end-of-year reading, THE FORGET-ME-NOT LIBRARY --- like the books offered by its magical cat --- may just change your life…if you’ll let it.