Nesting
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4.3 • 63 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2025 Irish Book Awards, Novel of the Year
Longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction
From an unforgettable new voice in Irish fiction, a heart-pounding, life-affirming story about one woman trying to leave her marriage and start over. For fans of Claire Keegan and Emma Donoghue.
‘Contains all the twists and turns of a classic thriller … Immersive and emotional’ New York Times
‘An escape story from Jodi Picoult territory, but with a lot more bite.’ The Age
‘Turns the idea of the domestic novel inside out … Not just riveting and deeply humane but – in an understated, ‘domestic’ way – radical, too.’ Observer
On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change her life. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.
It was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan's relentless campaign to get her to come back.
Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.
Tense, beautiful and gut-wrenching, Nesting is an unforgettable story of motherhood, underpinned by love, hope and resilience.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this tense, beautifully written debut novel, Ciara, a mother of two and pregnant with her third child, isn’t safe in her Dublin home. On the surface, her husband is attractive and charming, but he blames, manipulates and controls Ciara until one day, on the spur of the moment, she leaves. Isolated from her family, who are based in England, and with little money, she must navigate raising her children in temporary accommodation, while also overcoming her own self-doubt, seeded by years of bullying and psychological abuse. Can she really reinvent her life—and at what cost? The depiction of the sacrifices required to try to start anew, as well as the risks such a decision brings and the love that underpins Ciara’s actions, is nuanced and deeply affecting. This powerfully emotional novel will leave you wondering how far you’d go for freedom.
Customer Reviews
Loved t
Loved it. Well written. Moving 🩷