The Life Lucy Knew. Karma Brown
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One woman is about to discover everything she believes—knows—to be true about her life...isn’t.
After hitting her head, Lucy Sparks awakens in the hospital to a shocking revelation: the man she’s known and loved for years—the man she recently married—is not actually her husband. In fact, they haven’t even spoken since their breakup four years earlier. The happily-ever-after she remembers in vivid detail—right down to the dress she wore to their wedding—is only one example of what her doctors call a false memory: recollections Lucy’s mind made up to fill in the blanks from the coma.
Her psychologist explains the condition as honest lying, because while Lucy’s memories are false, they still feel incredibly real. Now she has no idea which memories she can trust—a devastating experience not only for Lucy, but also for her family, friends and especially her devoted boyfriend, Matt, whom Lucy remembers merely as a work colleague.
When the life Lucy believes she had slams against the reality she’s been living for the past four years, she must make a difficult choice about which life she wants to lead, and who she really is.
KARMA BROWN is an award-winning journalist and author of the bestsellers Come Away with Me, The Choices We Make and In This Moment. In addition to her novels, Karma’s writing has appeared in publications such as SELF, Redbook, Canadian Living, Today’s Parent and Chatelaine. Karma lives outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband, daughter and their labradoodle, Fred. The Life Lucy Knew is her most recent novel.
In This Moment
The Choices We Make
Come Away with Me
The Life Lucy Knew
Karma Brown
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Karma Brown 2018
Karma Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9781474083683
“[F]ascinating and deeply moving. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this powerful, compelling story for a long time to come.”
—Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost
“An emotionally complex journey... Brown delivers characters so vivid and truly likeable that it’s impossible to leave the book without feeling just a little bit better for having known them.”
—Jamie Brenner, bestselling author of The Husband Hour
“Brown is at the top of her game. Packed with rich layers and surprise revelations... [A] captivating love story.”
—Kerry Lonsdale, bestselling author of Everything We Left Behind
“[This] is the kind of story that engrosses you in a character’s life while making you contemplate your own. A fascinating look at what we most want to remember, and what we’d just as soon forget.”
—Jessica Strawser, author of Almost Missed You
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF KARMA BROWN
“[A] meticulous study of unresolved guilt and buried secrets.... An admirably layered portrait of how love can bend and still not break, and how the pain of betrayal and lost innocence, once confronted, can slowly fade.”
—Publishers Weekly on In This Moment
“Brown delivers an emotional punch in The Choices We Make. This is a good, old-fashioned tear-jerker of a book.”
—The Toronto Star
“With effortless and beautiful writing, Karma Brown twists heartache and hope together in The Choices We Make, taking you on each character’s complicated emotional journey and exploring how the worst-case scenario can still bring joy.”
—Amy E. Reichert, author of Luck, Love & Lemon Pie
“A warmly compelling love story [and] deeply moving debut.”
—Booklist
“[A] beautifully written story of love and loss... Come Away with Me had me smiling through my tears.”
—Tracey Garvis Graves, New York Times bestselling author of On the Island
“Karma Brown is a talented new voice in women’s fiction.”
—Lori Nelson Spielman, bestselling author of The Life List
“Laughing one minute, then fiercely blinking back tears the next, we tore through this novel—so gripping that we were both excited and scared out of our minds to turn the page. Multilayered and completely consuming...[a] stunning page turner.”
—Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, authors of The Status of All Things
“In Come Away with Me, one woman’s journey through grief becomes the journey of a lifetime.”
—Colleen Oakley, author of Before I Go
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