Desperate Acts — Jane Candia Coleman

INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION. 2001 Five Star hardcover, Jane Candia Coleman (Stories From Mesa Country). Nan Fletcher is an abused wife whose scars are all hidden because they're emotional. She appears to have it all--a great house, a successful professor husband, Jake, and her beautiful teenage son, Jamie--but with Jake's constant demand for perfection, she finds that she has lost her sense of self. She only feels alive when she finds a few moments to write poems and short stories, which her husband belittles. Nan and Jamie finally get a break from overbearing Jake when they end up going on vacation to a dude ranch without him.