NEW RELEASE
An Open Marriage - Tess Stimson (2014)
After moving from America to marry Kit and settle down, Mia struggles to make friends and yearns for the one female friend to fill the void. That is until Kit introduces her to Charlie, his boss, who is exactly the type of woman Mia would choose to befriend. For Charlie, Mia and Kit offer not only the intellectual and socially compatible companions she wants for herself, but ones that will satisfy her husband, Rob. And it's clear from the first meeting, that there's more between these four than just a platonic interest. It's not long before the intimacies in the relationships are played out, and whilst everyone's fairly happy with the situation to begin with, it doesn't take much for a line to be crossed and everything to come undone. This novel, as the title suggests, focuses very much on sexual relationships, couplings and mores. For me the partner-swapping, sexual transgressions and liberalism just weren't my thing, and although this isn't the only part of the book, it is the dominating one. Nevertheless, you can't deny Stimson's ability to create morally compelling stories, characters and situations and, as with her other books, again she challenges the notion of the reader as a passive, unthinking receptacle and makes reading a dialogue, an exchange of ideas and opinions between the reader and the characters. (JC)
An Open Marriage, by Tess Stimson, is centred around two couples looking for more. The summary says: "Mia Allen has never quite adjusted to living in England. She misses her friends in the States and feels restrained by small-town family life near Oxford. Her husband Kit, on the other hand, loves the sense of community here and his job as a school teacher in a private school. Like Mia, Kit's boss Charlie is also looking for more excitement in her life. Her marriage to emotionally distant Rob has left her frustrated and yearning for more. So when she and Rob are invited to dinner with Mia and Kit, she jumps at the chance to make new friends. One evening, the increasing attraction between all of them moves up a notch, and it's not long before the seductive highs of these new friendships soon leads to desperate lows. Can any of their relationships survive this unconventional arrangement?" An Open Marriage is out in July 2014.