Review: The Life Lucy Knew by Karma Brown

Title: The Life Lucy Knew by Karma Brown
Publisher: Park Row Books
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

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.

Review:

The Life Lucy Knew by Karma Brown is an engaging novel with unusual but fascinating storyline.

Waking up from a coma, Lucy Sparks is confused by the presence of her “work husband” Matt Newman and the absence of her real life husband, Daniel London. Needless to say, she is shocked to discover that her marriage to Daniel never happened and  her memories of their wedding are an unexpected side effect from the concussion that put her in a coma. Lucy is experiencing confabulated memory disorder and gaps in her memory from the injury to her brain. Some of her memories, like her marriage to Daniel, are false, but to her, they are very real. Other memories, including her break up with Daniel and her current relationship with Matt, are frustratingly missing, maybe forever.  After she leaves the hospital, Lucy moves back in with Matt.  But will her love for Daniel prevent her from trying to trying to resume the life she shared with Matt?

Before her head injury, Lucy has a pretty charmed life. She has a successful career that she truly enjoys. She and Matt are blissfully happy. She has a wonderful friendship with Jenny and Lucy is close to her parents and sister, Alex. But after the accident, she is missing about four years of her life and she cannot comprehend why she ended her engagement to Daniel or how her friendship with Matt turned into a romance. Despite learning Daniel has moved on with someone else, she is consumed with thoughts of him. A chance encounter takes her down a dangerous path that she knows is wrong, but Lucy is so helplessly unmoored from her life in the present, she clings to the love she feels for Daniel. She is also quite aware that she is hurting Matt but will Lucy continue making the wrong choices as she tries to figure out what her “new” future holds?

Matt is an incredibly loyal, caring and compassionate man and he never hesitates to make whatever sacrifice he needs in order to be there for Lucy. He is reluctant to push her to remember what they shared but he finally attempts to jog her memory. Matt’s efforts to re-create the pivotal moments in their relationship are bittersweet and poignant especially once Lucy realizes just how confused her memories are. Matt is deeply in love with Lucy, but will his patience run out once he learns the truth about what she has been doing behind his back?

The Life Lucy Knew is an emotional novel with a clever storyline and interesting characters. Some of Lucy’s decisions are exasperating but understandable as she tries to make peace with everything that has happened to her. Karma Brown brings the novel to a heartfelt and somewhat unexpected conclusion that will absolutely delight readers.