The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
I discovered Claire North earlier this year with her Gameshouse trilogy and loved her style, so I had to pick up The Sudden Appearance of Hope. I was not disappointed. I like how North writes, her ways of describing things, of conveying her characters' thoughts. She takes an idea, bases her story around it, and makes them amazing.
Hope can't be remembered - that's the idea in this one, the bit that the rest of the story revolves around. You could meet her, have dinner with her, and once she's left your sight, your hearing for a minute or two, you forget and your mind fills in that blank with whatever's most reasonable - you dined alone. Hope is many things - chief among them a thief. An interesting point - since she can't have relationships, she isn't a lover, a friend, an employee, she is free (cursed?) to define herself. Her ethnic backyard, dark skin and hair, have helped form her...