Clove is a young woman with a seemingly good life. She has an adoring husband, two healthy, happy children and a comfortable home in Portland, a pleasant US city. She is a perfectionist with an obsession with clean eating and super-health who has spent years building such “perfection”.
Unsurprisingly, this Instagram-friendly version of affluent domesticity is a sham used by her to conceal an abusive, violent and traumatic past – from herself as much from others.
Statistics around women and domestic violence make grim reading. In the UK, the National Centre for Domestic Violence reported that in 2023, 2.4 million people experienced domestic abuse – of whom 1.7 million were women. One in four women will suffer domestic abuse in their lifetime.
