Breakdown

‘Thrillingly relatable’
Harper’s Bazaar

‘This funny, thoughtful novel will resonate with lots of women’
Good Housekeeping

‘You won’t be able to put this down. A fascinating study of a woman who has sacrificed her dreams’
The Gloss

‘A masterful account of one woman’s dramatic rebellion against society’s demands’
Daily Express

‘A vivid portrait of a woman adrift’
Observer

Mothers are not supposed to go on road trips . . .

But one winter morning in Dublin, an ordinary woman wakes up in her ordinary home, her husband next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby. And – without thinking much about it – walks out the front door and never comes back.

So begins a journey which will take her into service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers – and the beds of strange men.

Until finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown.