Simon & Schuster | Book Chatter

The Ten Year Affair
By Erin Somers
Simon & Schuster, October 2025, 304pp.

The Short of It:

Compelling and thoughtful.

The Rest of It:

When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist. ~ from the publisher

I saw The Ten Year Affair on the Tournament of Books 2026 shortlist and was immediately intrigued. Luckily, I found it quickly on Libby and blew through it. It’s an amazing read in that you absolutely feel the conflict between these characters as well as the temptation. Oh boy, the temptation.

Cora is happily married to her husband. But is she really happy? Things have gotten rather safe. Her husband spends a lot of time smoking weed on the balcony while the kids sleep. The weed, well, it affects things in the bedroom. He’s struggling at work and she’s just miserable doing the same thing over and over both at work and at home.

Sam, is the dad of dads. His wife is an overachiever and very successful. He holds down the fort but is this his life now? Going to daddy and me classes and running the kids back and forth?

Sam and Cora end up at one of those baby and me classes and there is an instant attraction. Sam listens to Cora in the way that her husband does not. The two forge an immediate bond. Friendly, sweet. They decide to bring their significant others into the mix, signifying a platonic friendship, just looking for a little parental support.

That’s how it starts out.

Then, Cora begins to imagine an alternate reality. In that timeline, she and Sam are seeing each other. In the real world she refrains, they both do, but in that other timeline, things get serious pretty fast. The story bounces back and forth between the imagined timeline and what is actually happening until the two blur together and then there is only one timeline.

This is an intense read. Sam and Cora’s “relationship” spans ten years. Ten years of wishing, and hoping and then pulling the trigger. How does such a relationship affect these two families. How is it right, when two marriages are at stake? But it FEELS right. That’s the conflict. Erin Somers writes a story that has you going one way and then the other. Cora isn’t in the wrong. She’s not getting the attention she needs. And then, how could Cora do that? How could they start something while still fully involved with their spouses?

I would hazard to guess that anyone who has been married for say 15+ years or more, has experienced some of these feelings. Somers has created real, flawed, characters but ones that you root for even though what you are rooting for is potentially a marriage break-up. That’s conflict to the highest degree. If I had to assign a song to this book, it would be Depeche’s A Question of Lust.

Highly recommend. I went digging around to see what else she’s written and I see one other book, Stay Up with Hugo Best and I will for sure find a copy.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

The Deluge
By Stephen Markley
Simon & Schuster, 9781982123093, January 10, 2023, 896pp.

The Short of It:

This book left me feeling very frustrated and honestly, a little sick to my stomach. Climate change is terrifying.

The Rest of It:

In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. ~ Indiebound

In 2013, Tony is a scientist studying the effects of undersea methane. His discoveries are not welcome and result in death threats. As he continues with his studies, which take him into the mid-2030s, we are introduced to a cast of characters. Some broken, some desperate, some so driven that they are oblivious to their paths of destruction.

This is an ambitious and terrifying read because it gives us a glimpse of where we are headed. We are experiencing the effects of climate change now, but reading about what our lives could be 15 years from now is especially terrifying because I’m not sure we can do much about it at this point. So much damage has already been done. Is this our fate? Temps so hot that life cannot be sustained?

The Deluge is not a fun book to read but it is an important read. It’s nearly 900 pages but I plowed through it, hopeful that I’d find some glimmer of good somewhere in the text. That was not to be. This book will shake you up and leave you very unsettled. If that was Markley’s intent, then he succeeded.

Why read it? Because it’s important to consider how our actions affect life as we know it. Environmentally, rising temps, drought, poisonous gasses, and really, waste in general can do us in. Holing up in the safety of our homemade cocoons won’t save future generations.

Markley paints a very scary picture of the future. Do with that what you will.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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