When Catherine meets Michael in LA during a business trip, she doesn't appreciate the importance of their first encounter. From a brief affair a compulsion develops, one that will influence her life for many years to come as she finds herself inexplicably drawn back to him again and again. She reveals her story to Ruby, her travelling companion in India, as she struggles to make sense of a relationship that brought great passion but not necessarily love. Catherine's painfully honest account reveals the depth of her compulsion and the pressures that fuelled her dogged persistence, exposing her longing for stability and security. She has travelled far from home but she has to go much further to remove herself from Michael's prevailing influence. She maps the story of her longing and her addiction to him, using landmarks from their brusque conversations; shared memories of media soundbites; and the movements of the weather - showing how she became lost in the geography of desire which spans time and distance. A superbly powerful description of love and obsession in this extremely accomplished debut novel.