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Publisher Description
“Irresistible.” —Ada Calhoun, author of Crush
A newly open marriage brings discovery, excitement, and upheaval to a young couple, and to the friends and lovers in their orbit.
Thirty years old and reeling from her mother’s recent death, Frances feels as if she’s lost her sense of purpose, her joy. Her husband, Ben, will do anything to help her. So when she suggests that they open their marriage, he’s willing—and maybe even a little intrigued.
They invite a young woman into their bedroom, create a joint dating profile, and go on dates with other exploring couples, with mixed but often exciting results. Over the next five years, they explore their sexualities, navigating through jealousy, betrayal, desire, and obsession—and the friends and lovers in their circle find themselves asking new questions about their own lives and relationships.
When Ben finds himself falling in love with another woman, just as Frances realizes she’s ready to settle down and have a baby, they’re forced to confront the consequences of their experiment.
With warmth, humor, and sharp insight, Elisa Faison explores marriage’s many forms and possibilities—and announces herself as an exciting new voice in fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Faison's assured debut explores the ripple effect of a couple's decision to open their marriage. Frances and Ben, together since college, never considered such a thing. But after the sudden death of 30-year-old Frances's mother, Frances is left longing for a way to break through her emotional numbness. A flirtatious exchange with Lily, the couple's server at a restaurant, leads to an intensely pleasurable night for all three—but it's February 2020, and a global pandemic puts any further plans with Lily on hold. A couple of years later, as the world opens back up, Frances and Ben resume exploring the boundaries of their relationship, adapting to each other's changing desires. Meanwhile, their friends and family are alternately perplexed, intrigued, and titillated by their experimenting. The novel's structure—which shifts back and forth from the happy early years of Ben and Frances's marriage to the couple's expanded life with people they've dated, including Lily—is largely successful, though some of the flashbacks feel disconnected, particularly those centered on Frances's mother and grandmother. Still, Faison cleverly mirrors the phases of the couple's open relationship with shifts in tone, moving from sexy and exciting to increased emotional intensity and vulnerability. Readers will find it an intimate and insightful story of modern romance.
