She feels as if he understands her, and she follows his advice to see her actions through as she will know when what she is doing is wrong. Finally, she goes to see a shaman, pretending that she is writing an article, but confesses that she is also there to find answers for herself. She talks to psychiatrists who tell her that her behavior is not as strange as she thinks it is and want to schedule appointments for treatment. To get it, she talks to her husband about her feelings. She decides that she likes what the sexual encounters with Jacob have awakened in her, but during the period she tries to make Jacob hers, she realizes that she needs mental help as well. Linda finally gets him to meet her to have sex, but it is not at all as she expected as it is unconventional and lacks romance. Her endeavors include trying to dissolve his marriage by attempting to frame his wife so that she goes to jail and using a telephone number that is not hers to contact him and tell him that they have to meet because someone saw them together and is blackmailing her. She likes the feeling and from that point on becomes obsessed with getting Jacob as she thinks that he is the man she loves. At first, she has mixed feelings about her actions, but then she realizes that she feels better because she has taken two risks – eating at a different restaurant and spontaneously giving Jacob oral sex in his office. She meets him in his office, interviews him, and is about to leave when he locks the door and kisses her.

Soon afterwards, her boss sends Linda to interview a promising politician named Jacob who also happens to be an ex-boyfriend from her school days. The conversation leads Linda to believe that she is moving towards the apathy stage of depression. Linda talks to her friend about her depression and discovers that she is taking medication and feels fine now. Her friend takes her to a visually unappealing Japanese restaurant with excellent food. One day, she has lunch with a friend who suffers from depression. Still, she feels that she needs a change.

She has a loving and rich husband, two adorable children, and is a journalist at a well-respected Swiss newspaper. The narrative, told in the first-person perspective of Linda, begins with Linda telling readers how unfulfilled she is by her current existence even though, by society’s standards, she has the perfect life. Arrow Books (Penguin Random House UK), 2015. The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Coelho, Paulo.

Adultery coelho