Bonding
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The beach read with big ideas
'Audacious, hot, deeply uncomfortable and genuinely thrilling' - Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes
Adrift in her early thirties, Mary sets out to change her life, one ill-advised decision at a time.
First, she books a spontaneous flight to Ibiza where she meets Tom, a brilliant young chemist working on an experimental drug called Eudaxa that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life. As their connection deepens, Mary thinks she might finally be falling in love.
Then Mary lands a job at Openr, an innovative dating app with no limits. Its founder, Mary’s ex girlfriend Lara, will do everything it takes to make it a global phenomenon.
When Mary introduces Lara and Tom, love and pharma collide with devastating consequences. As whispers about Eudaxa’s side effects begin to grow, Mary is forced to ask whether love is even possible in a society that is falling apart.
Electrifying, urgent, and darkly funny, Mariel Franklin's Bonding is a uniquely modern story of sex and freedom in the messy tangle of our digital age.
'Part love story, part love-mare, Bonding asks big, bold questions about the future of human relations and relationships' - Sarah May, author of Becky
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Franklin's wry debut skewers the shifting social mores of late-stage capitalism. Mary, 32, is in a rut—recently fired from her dead-end London marketing job, she watches old episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot in place of a social life. Seeking excitement, she flies to Ibiza, where she meets alluring but aloof 36-year-old pharmaceutical marketer Tom. Their early interactions are stilted, and Tom, a fellow Brit, dispenses withering comments about her passive demeanor (" ‘You're one of those people who never shares anything, aren't you?' he said. ‘You're a pervert. You like lurking' "). But as they continue partying together, their connection grows. Meanwhile, Mary hears from enigmatic Lara, 33, once her lover and friend, who ghosted her three years earlier. Lara, an artist turned entrepreneur, practically begs Mary to take a job at Openr, her new dating app for "open-minded singles and couples." Back in the U.K., Mary ignores her instincts in favor of a paycheck and takes the role. Her days intensify as she balances developing edgy content for Openr and supporting Tom's work on the pharmaceutical industry's first prescription psychedelic. Franklin grounds the novel with textured characterizations, particularly in the contrast between Lara and Tom and in Mary's conflicting feelings toward them. This smart novel has plenty of bite.
