Karma Brown - The Life Lucy Knew

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.

About the Author

KARMA BROWNis 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.

www.KarmaKBrown.com

Also By Karma Brown

In This Moment

The Choices We Make

Come Away with Me

The Life Lucy Knew

Karma Brown

Copyright

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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9781474083683

PRAISE FOR THE LIFE LUCY KNEW

“[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

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Quote

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Questions for Discussion

A Conversation with Karma Brown

“For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”

—Elie Wiesel, Night

1

I have a complicated relationship with my memory.

Most of us, me included, believe our memories are fairly accurate. That events happened the way we remembered them, like a video camera capturing a scene: hit the play button and you’ll see the same images, the same order of events, unfold before your eyes. The quality as good as it was the first time the scene was captured.

But apparently that isn’t at all how it works.