Acts Of Desperation by Megan Nolan

 When she meets Ciaran in a bar one night, she is instantly attracted.  She soon goes out with him and starts having an affair.  Not a relationship as he seems interested one night and offputting the next.  Ciaran is a beautiful man but cold.  His relationship before her had been with a woman back in Sweden where he is from and over Christmas holidays, he suddenly returns to the former love.

She is gutted and spends her nights drinking herself into oblivion.  Then months later, she sees Ciaran again and they get back together.  She is determined to do whatever it takes to keep him this time and soon they are living together.  She spends her days thinking of what she can do next and her evenings cooking, cleaning, doing whatever he wants.

But can such a one-sided affair continue?  As the weeks go by, she starts to rebel against his continued coldness and his assumption of all power in the relationship.  Eventually, she gravitates to another man who is warm and loving and interested in her, not just what she can do for him.  

This is a debut novel for Megan Nolan who is an Irish author.  She won a Betty Trask award for this book which his given for first books written by someone under thirty.  Readers won't be able to turn away from this love affair but will be sickened by the narrator's willingness to give herself over so totally to someone who doesn't appreciate her.  Personally, I hate to think that love can be so desperate and that women can think so little of themselves.  It is, nonetheless, a book that can't be put down and Nolan will take her place among the many stellar Irish authors.  This book is recommended for literary and women's fiction readers.