My thanks to publisher Legend Press for the copy of the book for review. But can sex ever just be sex? Steve eventually agrees to the idea of sleeping with other people, but first they must set some ground rules; no sex with friends, no telling the kids, and a limit on how many times they can see the same person.
Can their marriage survive non-monogamy β even if they have permission? I am a relationship sceptic. Told you. A sceptic, cynic, whatever, I always give declarations of devotion and true love the side eye and nod.
Now, you could ask how perfect a marriage really is if one partner wants to try sleeping around. And to a certain degree, this is a sentiment I could understand. Tensions and emotions not properly explored before that come to a head in pretty dramatic fashion. Jo Bloom has taken a very interesting premise, a situation that I have no doubt is far more common than any of use might realise, and used it to take a deep dive into the world of long term relationships. To examine the darker side of family life and the way in which even a happy and loving couple could be nursing resentments and desires that they hide from their partner.
How the constant wondering of the what if might eat into that happiness and creating small fractures that, if untreated, could be come whopping great fissures. And no matter your relationship status, many will be able to identify with the challenges and difficulties that Steve and Fay have to face head on including difficult relationships with equally difficult parents hard relate , children who are facing up to bullying at school and acting out in unexpected ways or even the rekindling of friendships with people whose lives seem far more exciting and exotic than your own.
Steve is perhaps more sympathetic, although there were so many times I wanted to scream at him not to be such a doormat, to stand up for himself. But love or loathe them, they got under my skin and I wanted to experience both the good and bad with them both.
