INHALED

After discovering her husband’s infidelity, Isabelle wants to feel wanted again.

Newly returned to North America after years in Taiwan, she finds herself in New England, estranged from her marriage and uncertain of her future. When she meets Patrick, desire offers an escape—a warm body, an unfamiliar world, the possibility of another life.

But tenderness gives way to control. Intimacy becomes humiliation. Each departure carries the promise of freedom; each return renews her hope that the man she longs for might finally stay.

As Isabelle searches for the truth about Patrick, her life narrows around him. Her daughters, her friendships, her health—all begin to bear the cost. She recognizes the danger.

Still, she wants him.

Inhaled is an intimate, unsettling novel about desire, self-deception, and the hunger to be loved—and the painful distance between understanding why you must leave and being able to do so.