The Shape of Leaving explores the truths people bury, the lives they rebuild, and the love they must choose again.
A marriage can fracture in a moment. Rebuilding it can take
years. But what happens when that new beginning rests on a truth no one has yet
dared to speak?
In The Shape of Leaving, Ashlea Devane delivers an intimate,
emotionally layered novel about betrayal, separation, forgiveness, and the
difficult difference between remaining in a marriage and truly choosing it.
Luciana and Mateo have spent twelve years creating a life that appears steady
from the outside: shared routines, familiar rooms, and Tuesdays marked by Mateo
making pasta. Beneath that comfortable rhythm, however, distance has quietly
taken hold.
When Luciana discovers that Mateo has been living a second
life with Renata, the foundations of their marriage give way. Unable to decide
immediately whether to leave or stay, she steps outside the life she knows and
begins recovering parts of herself that have long been neglected. Her
friendship with Mara offers fierce, practical support, while Dante’s patient
presence opens the door to a different kind of connection—one in which Luciana
feels seen rather than managed.
What follows is not a simple story of one person’s
wrongdoing or another person’s escape. Devane allows every choice to carry
weight. Mateo must face the harm caused by fourteen months of deception and
prove that remorse is more than an apology. Luciana must decide what she wants
apart from habit, fear, or obligation. As separation creates room for honesty,
it also brings new complications, including a pregnancy, a return to the home
on Larkspur, and a secret that Luciana postpones revealing for nineteen years.
Through Sophia’s arrival and the reckoning that follows
nearly two decades later, The Shape of Leaving asks whether biology alone
defines a father, whether forgiveness can survive repeated tests, and whether a
family built imperfectly can still be real. Its emotional power lies in
ordinary details: a chipped mug, forgotten sketchbooks, an uneven shelf, a
kitchen table, and the daily actions through which love is either neglected or
renewed.
Tender without avoiding consequences, The Shape of Leaving
is a story for readers drawn to complex relationships, moral ambiguity, and
families that prove themselves not by remaining unbroken, but by rebuilding
with the truth finally in view.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashlea Devane dedicates The Shape of Leaving to her friends,
family, and her mother, Bella, whose lifelong inspiration encouraged her to
pursue her dream. The novel reflects Devane’s interest in imperfect families
and in love that becomes durable because it is deliberately chosen, day after
day.
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