This is enjoyable fluff, in places so sweet it made my teeth hurt. It’s like playing Chubby Bunnies with giant marshmallows. You get the idea. At first it seemed to be a straightforward romance, with a het couple mutually agreeing to split and support each other whilst finding fulfilment with other romantic partners. That would have been a great story in itself, with the inevitable pitfalls, misunderstandings, jealousies, etc., but the story didn’t quite go where I was expecting.
Sam is bisexual, but had married a childhood friend after getting her pregnant. Now they’ve realised their love is, and has always been, platonic, so they decide to split. Their college-age daughter takes it rather well, considering she then has to process the fact that her father’s new romance is male, after a lifetime of assuming her parents were locked in loving heterosexual matrimony. Again, the story didn’t go where I was expecting.
So the couple go to a “swap party” which wasn’t really one, as everyone seemed to have their eye on someone else before they put their keys in the bowl. Sam spots Oliver, sassy supermodel, highly successful. They eye-fuck each other whilst Sam is actually having sex with another woman, and get together after that. And they say romance is dead.
Sam and Oliver’s relationship develops quickly. I have nothing against insta-love whatsoever, but I sensed this was a book trying to be a bit more than a frivolous romance, and for me it didn’t quite fit. Still, the sexy scenes were well-written and pretty hot, so it was easy to not ask too many questions of the plot.
Again, this would have been enough, with all the complications that arise from having a super-successful, much younger lover and Sam working through his newfound bi status. At times I felt like saying to them, “I get it, you adore each other. Enough already,” but I want to stress the author did a great job of emphasising that Sam had not just gone “gay for you” or “straight to gay” but was indeed bisexual, and I could feel how important it was to make that distinction.
Where I felt the story was weakest, was in the conflict. A serial killer plot had been shoehorned in about half-way through the book and it just wasn’t necessary. There was a disconnect between that and the rest of the plot, with too much tell at the end and not enough show. It struck a tone-deaf note in what was otherwise a solid erotic romance, albeit one with rather too much navel-gazing on behalf of the protagonists.
Otherwise, The Swap was an easy read, somewhat lumpy in places, with lots of sex (yeah, some of it seemed unnecessary but it was finely done so …) and two likeable main characters. Oliver seemed just a little too good to be true, but I was in the mood to read about nice people, so right now I’ll count that as a win.
BLURB
When their daughter goes off to college, Samuel and his wife Gayle begin to take stock of their lives. Realizing they’re best friends and not in love with one another, the two agree to an amicable split. Nervous about jumping back into the dating world, they accept a friend’s invitation to attend a swap party.
Tossing their keys into a bowl and leaving it up to fate to decide who they’re paired with is too tempting to resist. But when Samuel is faced with an audacious young man who strikes up a conversation, the attraction to men he’s kept buried for so long comes rushing back.
At twenty-two years old, Oliver Hughes is one of the most sought after male models in the world. Sassy and bold, with a penchant for wearing high heels and a touch of makeup, Oliver’s life is what he always dreamed it could be. Except for one thing…
Yearning to fall in love and settle down, Oliver’s grown bored of meaningless hookups with shallow, fame seeking guys. While attending a swap party, his last-ditch effort to find someone who doesn’t know who he is when they meet, Oliver finds himself drawn to a handsome, older man. One who’s endearingly unaware of his own appeal.
As their relationship grows, something sinister and dark threatens what they’ve managed to build. What will it take for Oliver and Samuel to survive, and is their happily ever after doomed from the start?
