Informationen zum Autor Rosie Walsh lived and traveled all over the world, working as a documentary producer and writer. Ghosted , her American debut, was a New York Times bestseller and has sold more than a million copies worldwide. The Love of My Life is her second novel. She lives in Devon, UK, with her partner and two children. Klappentext A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK Gripping, heartbreaking and impossible to put down.Laura Dave A dazzling supernova of a book, it picks you up on line one and doesn't let you go until the very end. Lisa Jewell 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 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. Leseprobe One Leo Her eyelashes are often wet when she wakes, as if she's been swimming in a sea of sad dreams. "It's just some sleep-related thing," she's always said. "I never have nightmares." After a fathomless yawn she'll wipe her eyes and slip out of bed to check Ruby is alive and breathing. It's a habit she's been unable to break, even though Ruby's three. "Leo!" she'll say, when she gets back. "Wake up! Kiss me!" Moments will pass, as I slide into day from the slow-moving depths. Dawn will spread from the east in amber shadows and we will burrow in close to each other, Emma talking almost nonstop-although from time to time she will pause, midstream, to kiss me. At 6:45 we will check Wikideaths for overnight passings, then at 7:00 she will break wind, blaming the sound on a moped out in the road. I can't remember how far into our relationship it was when she started doing this: not far enough, probably. But she would have known that I was on board, by then, that I was no more likely to swim back to the shore than I was to grow wings and fly there. If our daughter hasnÕt climbed into our bed by that time, we climb into hers. Her room is sweet and hot, and our early-morning conversations about Duck are among the happiest moments my heart knows. Duck, whom she clutches tightly to herself all night, is credited with incredible nocturnal adventures. Normally I'll dress Ruby while Emma "goes down to make breakfast," although most days she'll get sidetracked by marine data collected overnight in her lab, and it's Ruby and me who'll sort out the food. My wife was forty minutes late for our wedding because she'd stopped to photograph the tidal strandlines at Restronguet Creek in her wedding dress. Nobody, except the registrar, was surprised. Emma's an intertidal ecologist, which means she studies the places and creatures that are submerged at high tide and exposed at low. The most miraculous and exciting ecosystem on earth, she says: she's been rockpooling since she was a young girl; it's in her blood. Her main research interest is crabs, but I believe most crustaceans are fair game. Right now she's got a bunch of little guys called Hemigrapsus takanoi in special sea-water tanks at wor...

Klappentext

**A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK**

“Gripping, heartbreaking and impossible to put down.”—Laura Dave

“A dazzling supernova of a book, it picks you up on line one and doesn't let you go until the very end.” —Lisa Jewell

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

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.

Leseprobe

One

 

Leo

 

Her eyelashes are often wet when she wakes, as if she's been swimming in a sea of sad dreams. "It's just some sleep-related thing," she's always said. "I never have nightmares." After a fathomless yawn she'll wipe her eyes and slip out of bed to check Ruby is alive and breathing. It's a habit she's been unable to break, even though Ruby's three.

 

"Leo!" she'll say, when she gets back. "Wake up! Kiss me!"

 

Moments will pass, as I slide into day from the slow-moving depths. Dawn will spread from the east in amber shadows and we will burrow in close to each other, Emma talking almost nonstop-although from time to time she will pause, midstream, to kiss me. At 6:45 we will check Wikideaths for overnight passings, then at 7:00 she will break wind, blaming the sound on a moped out in the road.

 

I can't remember how far into our relationship it was when she started doing this: not far enough, probably. But she would have known that I was on board, by then, that I was no more likely to swim back to the shore than I was to grow wings and fly there.

 

 

If our daughter hasnÕt climbed into our bed by that time, we climb into hers. Her room is sweet and hot, and our early-morning conversations about Duck are among the happiest moments my heart knows. Duck, whom she clutches tightly to herself all night, is credited with incredible nocturnal adventures.

 

Normally I'll dress Ruby while Emma "goes down to make breakfast," although most days she'll get sidetracked by marine data collected overnight in her lab, and it's Ruby and me who'll sort out the food. My wife was forty minutes late for our wedding because she'd stopped to photograph the tidal strandlines at Restronguet Creek in her wedding dress. Nobody, except the registrar, was surprised.

 

Emma's an intertidal ecologist, which means she studies the places and creatures that are submerged at high tide and exposed at low. The most miraculous and exciting ecosystem on earth, she says: she's been rockpooling since she was a young girl; it's in her blood. Her main research interest is crabs, but I believe most crustaceans are fair game. Right now she's got a bunch of little guys called Hemigrapsus takanoi in special sea-water tanks at work. I know they're an invasive species and that she's looking at some specific morphology she's been trying to pin down for years, but that's as much as I'm able to understand. Less than a third of the words biologists use can be understood by the average human; getting trapped in a group of them at a party is a nightmare.

 

 

Emma is singing to John Keats when Ruby and I arrive in the kitchen this morning, the sun jagging across the worktops and our cereal hardening in bowls. Her laptop, which displays a page of mind-boggling words and squiggles, plays a track called ÒKillermuffin.Ó When we resc…