The Love of My Life
A Novel
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4.2 • 665 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
“Rosie Walsh’s The Love of My Life is my favorite kind of thriller—gripping, heartbreaking and impossible to put down.”—Laura Dave
From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosted comes a love story wrapped in a mystery: an up-all-night page-turner with a dark secret at its core
I have held you at night for ten years and I didn't even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.
Who are you?
Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie.
And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real.
When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . .
But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Your heart will ache for the couple in this heart-pounding domestic thriller when long-buried secrets rise to the surface of their seemingly perfect marriage. Newspaper obituary writer Leo thinks he knows everything worth knowing about his beloved wife, Emma, a successful marine biologist. But when she begins cancer treatment and he superstitiously starts working on her obituary, he discovers just how much about her he doesn’t know—like her education, her career, even her real name. We were stunned by each revelation, but most intriguing of all is the discovery that Emma shares a secret past with a prominent TV pundit and his troubled actress wife. Author Rosie Walsh brilliantly alternates between the journeys of these characters in first-person chapters, deepening our sympathy and confusion with the back-and-forth shifts. Prepare to be thrilled by the loving intimacy, heartbreaking betrayals, and startling twists that fill this tale of lies, love, and redemption.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in London, this heartbreaking thriller from bestseller Walsh (Ghosted) explores the complexity of secrets in marriages. Leo Philber, an obituary writer, has been happily married to 40ish marine ecologist Emma Bigelow for seven years. Emma has been battling lymphoma, and in his effort to cope with her possible death, Leo decides to draft her obituary in secret. To prepare, he begins to research her life, but after discovering secret Facebook messages and inconsistencies about her educational background, he concludes that he truly doesn't know his wife. In chapters from Emma's perspective, she reveals that, instead of doing extensive research at the Northumberland beaches, she has been having clandestine meetings related to the traumatizing event that changed her life 20 years earlier. Leo soon learns about the meetings and demands an explanation, but Emma vanishes after dropping off their three-year-old daughter at nursery school. Walsh cleverly integrates twists that not even jaded readers will be able to predict into an initially slow-burning plot that builds to an emotionally raw yet satisfying conclusion. Walsh is a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews
the love of my life
great book!
Must read
The power to accept, forgive and live. A much needed read. Life, family, situations change us all. Choose to live, and live without chains or bondage
This book sucked me in
It took awhile for me to become fully invested, but once I was, I could not put it down. I thought I had it figured out, but no, it became more interesting. It’s a really good story.