The Life I Stole is almost here!

September has arrived in a flurry of freshly sharpened pencils and back-to-school grumbling; there’s the faintest chill in the air and the gentle patter of beechnuts dropping onto the lawn outside my office window, eventually to be swept up — not at all gently and with much muttering about child labour — by any young person standing still long enough to be presented with The Weekend Chores.

For the first time in months, I have the house to myself. Spurred on by this rare (and glorious) convergence of the creative fates, I’ve dusted off my keyboard, turned on my writing playlist, and — smattering of applause expected here — am back at my desk.

And not a moment too soon, because in just seven short sleeps, The Life I Stole will finally be among us. Get ready for some serious gushing in the next few months, because I really, really think you’ll like this one.

I will?

Yes! For one, it has all the fixings of a great love story. Our hero, Grey, is a young doctor at a big London teaching hospital. He’s your typical golden boy, all tousle-haired gorgeousness and big-grin upper-class privilege. But having sailed effortlessly through life so far, he cannot for the life of him understand why Agnes, training to become a doctor herself, refuses to be side-tracked from her career by shilly-shallying with him.

Tension mounts, as it always does when people fall in love despite their better judgment, particularly in a rather hostile environment determined to keep them apart. And for Agnes, it turns out, there’s a lot more at stake than just losing her heart. Hers is a complicated story, because her life is based on a lie so big and so dark that getting close to anyone, not just Grey, will put her carefully constructed future in jeopardy.

But as Agnes tries to stay the course at Thamesbury Hospital — a patriarchal old-boys situation, by the way, that desperately needs a woman to shake things up — she cannot help getting close to people. She makes friends, is guided by mentors and finds some wonderful mother figures (irresistible to a girl who lost her mother as a child). And yes, she does fall in love with Grey, and they could be so, so good together, if it weren’t for that darkest of secrets between them. So what will she choose: pursue her dream, come what may, or listen to her heart — and potentially lose everything?

Yep, this one’s got it all

Head, heart, and all the hospital romance, secrets, friendships and Sophie’s Choices you can cram in between.

Are we excited yet?? I know I am!