A gripping portrait of a woman fleeing abuse

Two chapters into Nesting, Ciara Fay, mother of two young daughters and pregnant with her third child, makes a seemingly split-second decision.

- Srinidhi Ragavendran

NESTING By Roisin O'Donnell Scribner UK/Paperback/400 pages/ $34.95 ★★★★★

One Monday afternoon, she gathers her children's passports and clothes, then leaves with them in the car before her husband returns from work.

Just pages earlier, she had tried to silence the voice urging her to escape. "There is no need to leave. You're just exaggerating, like Ryan says."

But when her husband's grip tightens, his words turn vile and his voice drowns out her own, she moves out of the home with her children.

Exiting the door, however, is only the beginning. Freedom is neither immediate nor guaranteed.

In her debut novel longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025, Irish author Roisin O'Donnell delivers a raw and compassionate exploration of the lingering grip of an abusive marriage, the uncertainty of what comes after the first escape, and the slow, unsteady process of reclaiming autonomy.

Set against the backdrop of Ireland's 2018 housing crisis, Nesting follows Ciara as she navigates emergency lodging, legal battles for custody and a system that often traps women in cycles of dependency.