Playing Away — Adele Parks

It's sexy. It's roguish. It's hilarious. It's a sensational debut novel from London, a joyously comic take on modern marriage and its fallout. Single people may feel they have it rough . . . but wait until you see what happens when married folk fall in lust. Connie Green's life should be perfect. She has a hot career, her wonderful husband, Luke, and a bunch of great girlfriends. But she has just met overwhelmingly sexy John at a business conference. Her head and her heart said, "no way", but her traitorous body shrieked "yes, YES!" Now Connie's deep into a tawdry affair, which is destroying her peace of mind and her grand plan for Happily Ever After. Maybe John is her destiny. After all, she's losing weight. It can't be a bad thing if she's losing weight, can it? Connie longs to confide in her girlfriends. They've always discussed their sex lives before, preferably over cocktails. But this infidelity thing makes it a trifle awkward. Connie's not quite sure what she wants. And that's exactly the trouble. A novel for every woman juggling the untidy mix of work, romance, sex, and marriage, Playing Away shimmers with equal parts comic relief and penentrating insight. Adele Parks has crafted a cunningly revealing portrait of the lives of hip, urban women, poised at the cusp of a millennium.