Acts of Desperation: A Stylist Book of 2021 and The Times bestseller

A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut novel about a toxic relationship and secret female desire, from an emerging star of Irish literature, for fans of Sally Rooney and Nora Ephron

**THE TIMES BESTSELLER**

*A ‘BOOKS OF 2021’ PICK IN THE NEW STATESMAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, i AND STYLIST*

‘POIGNANT, RAW AND UTTERLY UNIQUE’ Pandora Sykes

Love was the final consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead. Oh, don’t laugh at me for this, for being a woman who says this to you. I hear myself speak.

Even now, even after all that took place between us, I can still feel how moved I am by him. Ciaran was that downy, darkening blond of a baby just leaving its infancy. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. None of it mattered in the end; what he looked like, who he was, the things he would do to me. To make a beautiful man love and live with me had seemed - obviously, intuitively - the entire point of life. My need was greater than reality, stronger than the truth, more savage than either of us would eventually bear. How could it be true that a woman like me could need a man’s love to feel like a person, to feel that I was worthy of life? And what would happen when I finally wore him down and took it?

‘A LOVE STORY LIKE NO OTHER … INTENSE AND HONEST’ Karl Ove Knausgaard

‘STUNNING … A BOOK THAT YOU LIVE IN WHILE YOU’RE READING IT, AND WHICH THEN LIVES ON INSIDE YOU’ Olivia Sudjic