Book review: The Woman who Stole My Life
Stella Sweeney’s life is a mess. Returned to Dublin from New York, her marriage is over, her son hates her, and her divorced best friend’s bitterness against men makes her the very worst company. When her ex decides to give away his house, his business and all his possessions in a misplaced exercise of Karma, it seems life is to become even more complicated.
No wonder the once svelte Stella has turned to Jaffa cakes for comfort. Keyes flits backwards and forwards in time in her sparkling latest novel. It opens when, Stella, attempting a good turn, has a minor car crash. Shortly afterwards she has a horrific brush with paralysis when she contracts Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and is temporally unable to move or to speak. Enter Mannix, a prickly neurologist who proves his worth when he devises a method of blinking by which he and Stella can communicate. Recovered, she becomes an accidental self-help author, and she goes to New York with her new man and two teenagers to live the dream. Soon though, it’s clear that the glamorous life of a bestselling author is not all its hyped to be.
