When Lucy slips and hits her head, she suffers from a form of memory loss where she creates false memories. The man she thinks is her husband, Daniel, isn’t in her life anymore and the guy she thinks is only her workmate, Matt, is her doting boyfriend. Lucy needs to fill in the blanks and start remembering her life as it was.
Memory loss is a common theme in women’s fiction and this story delves into the premise of “honest lying”, where your memories feel like real experiences but are actually false. Lucy takes the reader on a journey that uncovers a few surprises about her life. It’s certainly not close to matching my favourite books about amnesia and is probably my least liked book from this author, but it’s still a solid read.
The Life Lucy Knew, by Karma Brown, is about a woman dealing with false memories. The summary says: "Lucy is about to discover everything she believes 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." The Life Lucy Knew is out in June 2018.