The Once and Future Me
Melissa Pace
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars
3.80
· 10 ratings · 384 pages · Published: 19 Aug 2025
Virginia November 12th, 1954: A young woman wakes, agitated and confused, on a patient transport bus arriving at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital. She remembers nothing of her life before that moment, none of the dark things she must've seen—and done—that have forged her into such a skilled and cunning fighter.
Once she's been subdued, doctors explain that she's Dorothy Frasier, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed by the state to Hanover for treatments they hope will quell her increasingly violent and grandiose delusions. She’s certain they’re wrong—until disturbing visions begin to invade her reality: of a dystopian future where frantic scientists urge her to do whatever it takes to complete "the mission" and save humankind. Convinced it's Hanover causing the hallucinations, she tells no one, focuses only on escape—
Until there's a visitor, a man whose loving face and touch she remembers, a man who knows all about her visions because he's spent years helping her cope with them: her husband, Paul Frasier.
Now she's sure of nothing, caught between two possible lives. Two realities. Believe in the future, and she might save the world. Believe in her doctors and Paul, and she might save herself. She's desperate for answers, but she'll have to harness the darkness inside her to get them, risking her freedom, her mind, and ultimately her life in a harrowing quest for the truth.
Tagged as:
- north america 3
- city/urban 3
- virginia 3
- usa 3
- sc-fi 3
- horror 3
- mystery 2
- suspense 2
- dystopia 2
- psychological 2
- time travel 2
- historical fiction 2
- historical 2
- literary fiction 1
- action / adventure 1
- Add topics
- content warnings
- mental illness 1
- format - reader age
- audiobook 1
- adult fiction 1
- book 1