Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: In most books, one expects there to be some character growth. In this book, the characters just get more and more debauched. Our main characters, Henry and Effie, are newlyweds from Georgia on their honeymoon in Cape May, NJ. It's September, so the summer resort community is largely empty, but soon Henry and Effie find another young couple in a house down the street. But their new friends are neither as young nor as innocent Henry and Effie, and soon they find themselves going inexorably down the path to dissipation and lasciviousness until they both doubt whether their marriage will outlast the honeymoon. Cheek saves most of his answers for the last chapter of the book, where the reader can trace the effects of their licentiousness.
Ultimately, this book is very readable (if you're in the mood for reading about a lot of sex) and the action (pun intended) is fairly continuous, making it feel as though things are moving along at a good pace. The descriptions of the town and the ocean are evocative (as are the descriptions of the sex) and the characters are believable, if not very likable. But there's not much movement in this book, either geographical or metaphysical, giving the book a somewhat stagnant feel.
Cheek shows his prowess (I just can't help myself) much more in the last chapter than in all the preceding ones, when he focuses on the emotions of a relationship more than the sex. He shows definite promise as a novelist (certainly anyone who can write a good sex scene is a promising novelist) but hopefully his future books will focus more on the growth of his characters than on their sex lives.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
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