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The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey — book cover

The Other Woman

by Eric Jerome Dickey
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Overview

Eric Jerome Dickey strides boldly over the minefield that is modern marriage. The central couple's biggest challenge is timing: He works days; she works nights. Instead of growing together, they're rapidly drifting apart, coexisting on stolen phone calls from work, punctuated by occasional bedroom encounters that leave them both feeling even emptier and more alone. When she finds out about his affair-and starts her own-the delicate fabric of their marriage is torn irrevocably asunder. Or is it? In Dickey's expert hands, what begins as a seemingly unforgivable betrayal segues into the sexy and searing story of a man and a woman at a pivotal turning point in their relationship. Only time will tell whether they'll let it all go...or can hold on to the love that drew them together in the first place.

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling hitmaker scores again with a "wonderfully written" (Washington Post Book World) new novel...

Publishers Weekly

Plans for revenge spin out of control in this sharp-edged, sizzling novel by bestselling Dickey (Liar's Game; Between Lovers). The unnamed narrator has it all-a loving husband, a beautiful home and a lucrative career as a television producer in Los Angeles. Although she works long hours, she knows that she and her husband, Charles, a middle-school teacher, depend on her earnings to live the good life. Upon receiving strange messages at work from a mysterious man named David Lawrence, she assumes that he is a media-hungry stalker. But when David finally reaches her, he tells her that her husband has been having an affair with his wife, Jessica. The reporter in her takes over, and she immediately confronts Charles, who admits that he had an affair with Jessica, but says it is over. Confused, angry and in complete shock, she demands that Charles give her the intimate details of the affair; he refuses. "And I'm supposed to accept that?... My marriage is supposed to be my place of solace, not a place of fucking grief, and my husband is supposed to my friend, not my fucking enemy. Choose which one you wanna be." Unwilling to go on without answers to her many questions, she soon finds herself commiserating with David Lawrence. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, her world falls apart and she finds herself desperate for revenge. But will revenge heal her tattered soul or destroy her completely? Dickey offers plenty of straight-on sex and violence, but also probes questions of contemporary morals and the psychology of betrayal, writing compellingly and believably from his heroine's point of view. This will be another crowd pleaser. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Eric Jerome Dickey

Back in 1996, former software engineer writer Eric Jerome Dickey quit his day job as a substitute teacher after the success of his first novel, Sister, Sister. With the sexy, savvy flow of African-American-themed bestsellers that followed, it's pretty safe to say Dickey won't have to go back to the classroom.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Plans for revenge spin out of control in this sharp-edged, sizzling novel by bestselling Dickey (Liar's Game; Between Lovers). The unnamed narrator has it all-a loving husband, a beautiful home and a lucrative career as a television producer in Los Angeles. Although she works long hours, she knows that she and her husband, Charles, a middle-school teacher, depend on her earnings to live the good life. Upon receiving strange messages at work from a mysterious man named David Lawrence, she assumes that he is a media-hungry stalker. But when David finally reaches her, he tells her that her husband has been having an affair with his wife, Jessica. The reporter in her takes over, and she immediately confronts Charles, who admits that he had an affair with Jessica, but says it is over. Confused, angry and in complete shock, she demands that Charles give her the intimate details of the affair; he refuses. "And I'm supposed to accept that?... My marriage is supposed to be my place of solace, not a place of fucking grief, and my husband is supposed to my friend, not my fucking enemy. Choose which one you wanna be." Unwilling to go on without answers to her many questions, she soon finds herself commiserating with David Lawrence. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, her world falls apart and she finds herself desperate for revenge. But will revenge heal her tattered soul or destroy her completely? Dickey offers plenty of straight-on sex and violence, but also probes questions of contemporary morals and the psychology of betrayal, writing compellingly and believably from his heroine's point of view. This will be another crowd pleaser. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Tracey Leigh's reading is on target in this gritty novel about the devastating consequences of marital infidelity. The unnamed narrator is a hard-working, Hollywood news producer who spends stressful nights at the station, helping to put together the usually depressing local news. She believes her husband, Charles, a middle-school teacher, spends his nights home alone grading papers until she gets a call from a distraught David Lawrence who claims his wife has run off with Charles. When our protagonist confronts Charles, he admits to the affair but says it is over and is reluctant to share the details the news producer in her craves. Her thirst for the truth sends her back to David, who has captured their cheating spouses' electronic correspondences thanks to a special software program. What she learns from those instant messages and email devastates her. Those expecting Dickey's trademark steamy erotica may be somewhat surprised here, as many of the graphic scenes are best described by the unnamed narrator, who says, "Sex without love is violence." Recommended for all adult fiction collections.-Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Love is hell. Wifey. The wife. She doesn’t even have a name in the passionate e-mails Charles, a teacher, exchanges with his lover Jessica, a PE instructor. But she’s a real, live, fire-breathing woman, quivering with righteous anger when she finds out about the affair. Jessica’s husband, David Lawrence, calls her at work (she’s a segment producer for a local TV news show) to tell her that he just gave Charles a black eye in the school parking lot but decided not to shoot him. Oh--so that’s the real explanation for the shiner Charles said he got from breaking up a schoolyard fight. Looks like her husband is a cheating dog. She didn’t see it coming, didn’t know it had been going on for eight long months. How could he? Why would he? She always had a hot meal ready at the end of the day, and she never turned him down in bed. Like her mother always said, a woman has to be a woman to her man or some other woman would be. Things spin out of control real fast, and it’s not long before she’s having revenge-sex on the down-low with David, a moody artist who admires her dreadlocks and delicate freckles. He prints out the e-mails and she confronts Charles, who can’t deny it now--and heads off to take out his frustrations on a punching bag in the garage. Is it because she earns more money than he does? Well, yes and no. Best friend Yvette, a free spirit sexually and otherwise, puts in her two cents: men have needs and ain’t nothin’ goin’ to change that. (Yvette is not above satisfying her own needs at group sex parties, described, for interested readers, in salacious if somewhat irrelevant detail.) The action heats up to a thunderously melodramatic end pretty quick, and lessons are taught--andlearned. Good and gritty storytelling from the best-selling Dickey (Thieves’ Paradise, 2002, etc.).

Book Details

Published
June 1, 2004
Publisher
Penguin Group (USA)
Pages
336
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780451211934

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