The Woman Who Stole My Life - Marian Keyes

'Name: Stella Sweeney.

Height: average.

Recent life events: dramatic.'

One day, sitting in traffic, married Dublin mum Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life.

For she meets a man who wants her telephone number (for the insurance, it turns out). That's okay. She doesn't really like him much anyway (his Range Rover totally banjaxed her car).

But in this meeting is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, and, along the way, wrenching her whole family apart.

Is this all because of one ill-advised act of goodwill? Was meeting Mr Range Rover destiny or karma? Should she be grateful or hopping mad?

For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

Never having read a Marian Keys book before I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m so glad I chose this book to review – it’s brilliant. I’ve never read anything quite like it before. I was initially intrigued by the title of the book and it’s quoted by Stella’s ex-husband very early on, so I thought that was it. How wrong was I and fell hook line and sinker into the plot, never guessing what was going to happen, other than Gilda seemed like she was up to no good.

It begins with Stella – having an accident, and then from there we learn she is a writer – but what unfolds is told with such depth I got completely lost in the pages.

The book weaves between the past and present, which seems to be a style of most books I read at the moment. However, in this book it enabled me to meet the characters and then when I got the back story form a completely different opinion of them.

My thanks go to Penguin UK and Net Galley for providing me with a copy of the book to review, I’ve really enjoyed it.