Coco Harding is a humor columnist for the Seaport Gazette
newspapers. On an assignment, she is introduced to Dr. Harry
Troutman, leading plastic surgeon on the upper East Side.
Coco loves her husband. She's in a committed relationship,
but not an orgasmic marriage. So, against her moral judgment
Coco enters into an affair with Harry. It is lust at first
sight.
Maybe it is to justify her indulgent behavior; Coco explains
her life up to the opening moment of her illicit encounter;
including her childhood, her failed relations, her daughter,
and her current relationship with her devoted husband. She
is destined for this burden because of the trials life has
given her; be it by the great wealth she was born into or
the natural beauty she was born with.
The grass is greener and the sex to die for. Their passion
comes with all the trimmings, and their relationship is a
culinary delight of dining out at exquisite restaurants and
evenings of sinful sex. Eventually Coco becomes friends with
Éclair, Harry's wife, and is invited to parties. Parker,
Coco's husband, encourages the friendship. Through it all,
Coco admits her feelings of guilt and reasons for the need
for fulfilling sex to her therapist, Dr. Finkelman. He
finally tells her that morally she must stop this affair
before somebody is injured.
An anonymous letter is mailed to the perspective victims and
perpetrators. Coco denies to Parker that she is at fault.
The letter, and following correspondence (each more
threatening than the last), do not have the desired effect
and the affair continues.
What makes SEDUCING HARRY memorable are the humor columns by
'Coco' intermingled into the novel. In these articles I like
Coco. In those clippings, she is somebody I can relate to.
But when you return to Coco's story, I felt her character
was shallow. She doesn't grow or change. It's still
everybody else's fault for what happened. If another Harry
came into her life, Coco will do what Coco wants. If you can
accept these conclusions, you'll enjoy this novel.
Ms. Marks-White is great at writing promising scenes, making
the reader turn that next page because you just know that in
the next page, you will return to the storyline or you'll
get to that exciting scene that makes your pulse race. For
my tastes in reading material, that thrill took way too
long, and, like Parker Harding, lacked substance when it did
come. I love reading those books where you squirm in your
seat and look for your husband. Sorry ladies, this isn't one
of those books. Neither is it one of those books that you
keep a box of facial tissues next to you because it's a
scene that you're either crying in sorrow or laughing hard
enough to cry. That didn't happen for me anyway.
Coco Plotnick Hollander Harding, a columnist for
Connecticut’s Seaport Gazette, relishes two things in life:
food and sex. While the first can be satisfied with a
delectable foie gras, her cravings for the latter leave her
with hunger pangs of a different sort–particularly since her
WASPy husband is not exactly a gourmand in the
bedroom.
While covering a Chaîne des Rôtisseurs
vegetarian banquet for the Gazette, Coco finds her appetite
whetted by a very charming (and very married) plastic
surgeon, Harry Troutman. The two foodies quickly commence a
feast of hot infidelity, but anonymous letters sent to
Coco’s husband and Harry’s sleek, self-indulgent wife,
Eclaire, hint at the torrid affair . . . and provide the
crucial ingredients in a recipe for disaster. Will the
lovers receive their just desserts?
In this
lip-smacking debut novel, Judith Marks-White whips up a
five-course meal of saucy wit, steamy sex, and tantalizing
scandal that will fill your plate and please your palate.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy