Infidelity

Written by Stacey May Fowles

Narrated by Morgan Hallett

Ronnie, an engaged hairdresser with a history of teenage recklessness and mystery childhood illnesses, feels stifled by the unavoidable pull of the predictable, comfortable life laid out before her. Charlie, an anxiety-ridden, award-winning writer, feels suffocated by his literary success and familial responsibility, including a bread-winning wife and a child with autism. When the unlikely pair meet at a holiday party where Ronnie's fiancE is the caterer, a torrid affair, which begins on office desks and in Toronto hotel rooms, provides both with a false reality that offers solace in its secrets. Charlie becomes obsessed with the calm of Ronnie's ordinariness, and Ronnie revels in the clandestine secrets and dramatic interludes of an otherwise predictable life. The two live in film scripts and prose, until the entire lie combusts in all its tragic beauty. Beautifully written and engaging, this novel calls into question society's strict definition of right versus wrong while examining what it means to be a husband, wife, parent, and human being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490687438

Stacey May Fowles

STACEY MAY FOWLES is a multiple award-winning journalist, essayist and author of four books, including the national bestseller, Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game that Saved Me. She is the co-editor, with Jen Sookfong Lee, of the anthology Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity and Motherhood. A former columnist at the Globe and Mail, Stacey currently writes the Book Therapy column for Open Book Ontario. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and daughter.

Reviews for Infidelity

[nickelini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While helping her fiance cater an event, hairdresser and risk-taker Ronnie meets Charlie, who is the new writer in residence at the University of Toronto. They begin an affair. This book is not a romance, so you can see from the beginning that this is not going to have a happy ending. Charlie is married and has a son with autism, Ronnie has been struggling with fertility problems.I struggle to describe this book adequately. Let me just say that I didn't like any of the characters, yet I really enjoyed reading it and breezed through it in a couple of days. I think the fact that I cared so much about a book where I didn't care for the characters says that this is a well-written story.Recommended for: readers who like books with realistically drawn people and situations.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book because the characters are so wonderfully portrayed. They are so real...I felt like I knew them. This is the story about an affair between a married man (Charlie) and a younger, engaged woman (Ronnie). They are opposites is so many ways: she is reckless, he is anxious. There is so much passion between them.But this is also a story about how we see ourselves and what we really want from life. Ronnie is a very complex character, struggling to find her way as she leave the path she is expected to follow.

[maryevelynls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

~I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for a fair review.~

I really enjoyed this one! Infidelity is everything one wants in a "guilty pleasure" read. And talk about guilty!! One will also laugh when I say that it was actually refreshing and by that I mean that the characters were not perfect housewives with perfect husbands, who led perfect lives, had perfect children and were also NOT perfectly pretty. Nope. The characters were flawed from the start.

Veronica, or Ronnie, is engaged to be married to Aaron, who is almost perfect, but also very boring and SAFE. Aaron owns a catering company and Ronnie often helps out. While assisting Aaron one night at a party, Ronnie catches the eye of Charlie, the honored guest of said party. Charlie is a celebrated author, much older than Veronica, and very married. Charlie is also a father to an autistic son named, Noah. Charlie isn't the most responsible guy. He is neurotic, anal, and suffers from anxiety attacks. Charlie NEEDS someone to take care of him. He craves attention and he is instantly attracted to Ronnie, who appears to be carefree, independent, and quite opposite from everything that Charlie isn't.

When Ronnie first lays eyes on Charlie she sees an older man, not very attractive, pot bellied and messy but there is something about Charlie that draws Veronica in to him. Charlie is everything that Aaron is not.

Ronnie and Charlie's worlds collide at a time when both of their lives appear to be very fragile. Ronnie seems to want to sabotage her future, to shake things up because they seem so vanilla, wants to be reckless in her too safe world. Charlie is in need of someone to take care of him, to worship and idolize him, to give him the emotional comfort he lacks. And so it begins. Infidelity.

What does one stand to gain from such a relationship? Or...better yet, what does one stand to lose?