The Woman Who Threw Her Life Away
by Kerry Fisher
What if throwing everything away gave you everything back?
Up in the attic, I sort through the boxes of old photos, broken airbeds and sun umbrellas. Why does my husband Giles refuse to throw anything away? Then my eyes fix upon a dusty stack of letters and a memory stabs at my chest. They’re all dated thirty years ago, but I’d recognise that handwriting anywhere, and seeing it again now makes my heart skip a beat…
Back in our bedroom, I force myself to get ready for my birthday meal. Giles’ friends – our friends – will no doubt arrive in designer dresses and expensive suits, but turning sixty has made me realise that things can’t make you happy. So maybe it’s time to see if the reverse is true…
Will throwing away all the possessions I was convinced I wanted free up space to see what really matters? How will it feel to be defined by who I am, rather than what I own – or who I’m married to? This is not how I thought my life would be when I left everything behind for Giles.
As I walk into my party wearing a perfectly rehearsed smile, I can’t stop thinking about the letters in the attic. So many words left unsaid. Is it too late to explain why I did what I did? And can I be trusted to do the right thing, even if it means destroying the life I’d fought so hard to build?
If the truth comes out, I could lose everything. Or I could get everything back…
The Woman Who Threw Her Life Awayis an emotional and gripping novel that is packed with family secrets. If you love Liane Moriarty or Diane Chamberlain, you won’t be able to put this down.
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My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Giles no longer indulged my ‘quirks’, viewing them now as irritating flaws to be ironed out. Unfortunately, my ‘quirks’ were becoming the thing I liked most about myself. Perhaps gathering more would be my new hobby.
I got the sudden urge to giggle as I considered that twelve months ago, I’d been on the Marie Kondo treadmill to banish clutter from my house. I wondered if I was the only woman who’d gone too far and started culling people instead. If only I had some artistic ability, I could draw a great comic strip of driving down to the tip with a protesting crowd of friends locked in the boot. I could assign them to various bins according to their crimes. Long-winded and devoid-of-a-punchline stories. Exhausting the allotted time to speak about their ailments. Everything out of their mouth was a moan. It would make a great picture book series for adults.
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My Review:
I always enjoy reading this clever scribe; her tales are witty and amusing, thoughtfully parsed with perceptive insights, and feature realistically flawed characters who could be living in our own neighborhoods. Her writing style is engaging, well-honed, easy to fall into, and had my Kindle beckoning to me when I was forced to put it down. The emotive storylines also had me rethinking my own choices. If only decluttering a home and life was this easy. I could use a total reset myself.
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Kerry Fisher is a million-copy bestselling author. She writes contemporary women’s fiction, is a USA Today bestseller, and her books have been translated into 12 languages. She was born in Peterborough, studied French and Italian at the University of Bath, and spent several years living in Spain, Italy, and Corsica. After returning to England to work as a journalist, she eventually abandoned real-life stories for the secrets of fictional families. She lives in Surrey with her husband and a naughty Lab/Schnauzer called Poppy, who joins in the huge dances of joy when her young adult children come home.
