Title: Nesting

Author: Roisín O’Donnell

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Scribner

Publication Date: 30th January 2025

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. 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.

This 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.

What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control – and what will be the cost?

Tense, beautiful, and underpinned by an unassailable love, hope and resilience, this is the story of one woman’s bid to start over.

Review:

Nesting is a beautifully written and quietly devastating book that honestly I cannot praise highly enough. It’s not loud, adrenaline filled or anything like that but has a subtle and indescribable power to it that makes it impossible to put down or fail to be moved by. My heart just ached for Ciara as she makes the brave and difficult decision to leave an abusive relationship and tries to build herself a new life with her two young daughters, facing many difficulties along the way. Nesting is piercingly astute in the way that it demonstrates that it is never as simple as ‘just leaving’ and that there are so many layers of complexity to any situation which makes things complicated and heart wrenchingly difficult. This book demonstrates how many challenges there are to being in the housing or legal system when you are forced to ask for help and how hard it can be to get support through official channels. However, Nesting is not unrelentingly bleak either. It also shows that there are good people out there too, both whom already may be in your life, or whom you have yet to meet, and those people can provide a support system that helps you get through things that seem impossible. Ciara does need help to start again but I don’t want to diminish in any way how she herself is the real strength in her life and for her children. I loved her as a character and was desperate for things to work out ok for her. Nesting is a remarkable debut that feels achingly realistic, sensitively written, emotional and ultimately hopeful. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

★★★★★

Thank you so much to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour and organising it. I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

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