Memory Keepers

In a house on Maple Street, where time has suddenly come to a standstill, 82-year-old Eileen Hart discovers that her kitchen clock is missing its minute hand. It's the first in a series of impossible occurrences: sunflowers growing six feet tall overnight, mirrors that predict movements before they happen, and hallways that shrink when she isn't looking.When a middle-aged man named David arrives at her door claiming to be the son she never had-complete with DNA evidence and a hospital bracelet from 1963-Eileen must confront the possibility that her memories are not just fading, but have been deliberately forgotten. As the boundaries between past and present blur, Eileen finds herself attending her own funeral, visiting her dead husband in the hospital, and planting gardens she has no memory of tending."The Clock Forgets Me" is a mesmerizing exploration of memory, time, and the lengths we go to to protect ourselves from painful truths. Set in a small Wisconsin town where reality itself has become negotiable, this literary novel with elements of magical realism delves into the complex territory of protective amnesia and the psychological mechanisms we employ to shield ourselves from grief.For readers who treasured the emotional depth of "Still Alice" and were captivated by the imaginative wonder of "The Midnight Library," Brunell's novel offers a unique third space, where dementia becomes not just a medical condition but a metaphorical landscape for exploring how identity persists even as memory fails.At once heartbreaking and hopeful, "The Clock Forgets Me" asks profound questions: Do our choices retain their meaning when we can no longer recall making them? Can love endure when its history has been forgotten? And what grows in soil that remembers the seeds it's held, even when the gardener does not?While Eileen's story stands powerfully on its own, this novel introduces readers to the first installment in Brunell's innovative "Memory Keepers" universe-a series of interconnected yet independent works exploring the metaphorical landscapes of memory, time, and identity. Each forthcoming book will introduce new characters and settings while expanding on the transformative framework of magical realism established here.With exquisite prose and deep empathy, Raymond Brunell crafts a story that will resonate with anyone who has loved someone through memory loss, anyone who fears being forgotten, and anyone who wonders what remains when the stories we tell ourselves begin to unravel.

In the quiet northern Wisconsin town of Eden Creek, botanical illustrator Lily Hamilton returns home after five years away to confront a mystery at her grandmother Martha's house. But the moment she arrives, she knows something is wrong. The garden shouldn't be alive-not in March, not with sunflowers towering over the roofline, and certainly not emitting frequencies that trigger synesthetic responses in both grandmother and granddaughter.For Lily, who has spent her life managing her sensory processing differences, these subtle synesthetic anomalies aren't just noticeable-they're impossible to ignore. The garden seems to recognize her, responding to her presence with shifts in tone and rhythm that trigger flashes of memories that don't entirely belong to her.Hidden among the impossibly vibrant plants, Lily discovers evidence of her grandmother's secret work-a network of botanical anomalies that shouldn't exist outside of laboratory conditions. Each plant seems calibrated to a specific frequency, preserving fragments of conversations, emotions, and moments the Hamilton women have tried to forget.As she reconnects with Martha after their long estrangement, Lily uncovers a connection between the garden's properties and her family's history of synesthesia-perceptual differences they've hidden for generations. The garden isn't just preserving memories; it's amplifying a form of communication that most people can't access.But someone else wants the garden's secrets. When a stranger begins asking questions about Martha in town and unusual lights are reported at night, what began as a reluctant reconciliation becomes a fight to protect something neither woman fully understands.Complicating matters is the return of childhood connections and the involvement of Dr. Eleanor Shaw, the neurologist who has helped Martha understand her unique perception. As the garden continues to produce impossible blooms-phosphorescent roses that pulse with Bach's Passacaglia, peonies that sing in Clara's voice-Lily and Martha must work together to interpret what the garden is trying to tell them.As winter threatens the impossible blooms, Lily must embrace the very sensory differences she's spent her life suppressing to understand the garden's true purpose. The frequencies are evolving, revealing a pattern that points to a buried family secret-one that could either heal the fractures in their relationship or permanently alter the fabric of reality in Eden Creek.Every night, the garden's scent grows stronger, carrying hints of seasons that haven't arrived yet-the scent of tomorrow. And with each day that passes, the line between memory and premonition, between technology and magic, blurs further."The Scent of Tomorrow's Garden" is a lyrical exploration of neurodivergent experience wrapped in a rural mystery. In this small town where the extraordinary grows alongside the ordinary, Lily discovers that authenticity is not just a personal journey but perhaps the key to understanding a form of communication that transcends the limitations of neurotypical perception.