A beautiful loan

"In Dublin in 1985, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage, bereavement and, eventually, to a crushing betrayal. When Anna meets a kind Muslim man, she finds herself falling in love not only with him, but with the Muslim faith itself. For a while, Karim provides a refuge and offers renewed hope, but, slowly, Anna's life begins to contract and she realises she must find a way to break free. Unfolding over twenty-five years, this is a gut punch of a novel about the loss of innocence, the shame and humiliations of love, and the psychological cost of seeking salvation in others. A Beautiful Loan is a devastating story about what it means to lose and find oneself in love, as well as a testament to literature's ability to give us a language when we're lost for words"--