An extreme experience.
A heartbreaking autobiographical novel.
The author testifies to bewildering crimes, occurring in Italy,
just three decades ago, inside a family and in a mental hospital.
Unimaginable crimes almost too absurd to believe possible,
...that no one has ever before dared to expose to public scrutiny.
Actual events chronicled from a reality so bizarre, so
nightmarish, where demented and criminal madmen continued
to segregate, abuse, and torture a sane and innocent young
woman almost to the point of no return.
A story of illness and despair, lovingkindness and hatred,
healing and romance, friendship and superstition, loneliness
and loss, envy and revenge, electroshock and the worst
psychical and physical abuses in an asylum turned house of
horrors.
Yet, on a distant horizon, the only hope: A deliverance through
the miraculous devotion of love.

The author

Chamed is not the registry office name of the author, yet it is not a pseudonym. She lives in Tuscany, she works mostly abroad, as a painter on canvas and porcelain. Some of her porcelain works are displayed in exhibitions in Italy, Sweden and Poland, France, Portugal and Brazil. My Heart Stopped Beating is her first novel. A second novel by her is forthcoming.

Praise for Chamed’s My Heart Stopped Beating

“I read Chamed’s book in one day last summer. I can say
that I devoured it. It was still in draft, but I could not stop
reading it. It really stopped my heart. A strong, direct, fascinating
story: it strikes and leaves its mark.”
Edmondo Rho, special correspondent for Panorama

“No person who reads this book could fail to be profoundly
moved to reflect first of all on the very serious danger to
innocent people of institutions which fail to maintain proper
oversight against abuses to patients in mental health institutions.
Secondly it shows how justice can fail to be served in
modern society, where adequate protection for the interests
of minor surviving orphans may be lacking or nonexistent.
[…]
Finally no reader can read this without great inspiration
to the courage of the human spirit and the power of human
love to defeat evil.
Reading this book, as well as having a role in disseminating
its message to the public, is a great privilege, that every
reader will probably experience gratitude for.”
Ed Carl, Editor

“Full of emotion!”
Aurora Magnin-Roncada, Translator of the French edition

“A deeply moving story, incredible in its lucidity.”
Carlo Castelli, author of Nervi d’acciaio