Acing the Game
Carey PW
Publication date: February 10th 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ+, Romance
Is food really the way into a person’s heart?
Shep Lee thought he had it all. A successful restaurant, a loving husband who understood his asexuality, and most of all, the ability to be himself, a popular chef in the small town of Cloverleaf, Montana. That is, until his husband, Elmer Eshler, began pushing Shep more on sex.
Elmer doesn’t understand why he can’t turn his partner on—aren’t they perfect for each other? And Shep loves him, right? Shep, meanwhile, while confident with his body, is and forever will be sex indifferent. Why has Elmer suddenly changed his tune? But he doesn’t want to lose the man he loves so much. What can they do?
Shep convinces Elmer to try a polyamorous relationship. Elmer gets to have Shep and the sex life he’s always wanted. Shep gets a cooking buddy and a chance to experience a relationship and even try sex with a woman as his authentic gender. At first, Shep isn’t sure, but finds himself coming around—this feels safer than opening up the relationship. All three of them will be romantically involved, so that should ease any jealousy, right?
But when Willow Saint, a free-spirited, boisterous, and saucy young woman, comes into their lives, neither are prepared for the emotional and sexual rollercoaster that follows. Enthralled by Willow’s charm and kindness, Elmer and Shep struggle to understand what this means for their own bond. Can they become one happy family? Or will this ruin everything?
Author Bio:
Carey PW (he/they) is an author, college instructor, and mental health counselor.
Carey currently lives in Montana, and identifies as nonbinary, transmasculine (AFAB) and panromantic asexual. Carey has discovered that writing about his lived experiences is a therapeutic outlet for him and hopes that his readers relate to his own personal struggles and triumphs shared through his characters’ narratives. He has also worked as a high school and college writing instructor, earning a B.A. in English Literature, a M.Ed. in English Education, and Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education all from the University of Georgia. In 2020, Carey earned his second M.Ed. in Counselor Education and works as a licensed clinical professional counselor, LCPC.
Readers can learn more about Carey from his blog, www.careypw.com. When he is not writing, Carey is busy training for marathons, parenting his six cats, sharing his culinary talents on social media, and serving on the board for the nonprofit Center for Studies of the Person (CSP).
Carey PW loves to hear from readers. You can find his contact information, website and author biography at www.extasybooks.com.
My Review
The book tackles a number of quite weighty and challenging concepts. How can they make a relationship work when they are so incompatible sexually, even though everything else works? How important is it to be on the same page when it comes to sex and what might be the fallout if they do decide to take this step?
I thought that for the most part, this was all handled well and sensatively. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of backstory to understand with these two characters, there's no real way around this as what follows in the 'main' part of the story simply wouldn't make sense without it. The problem is that we then end up with rather a lot of telling rather than showing and that slows the whole narrative down. It also made it difficult to fully connect with the characters. It's a shame because it does detract from the story somewhat.
I did enjoy this read despite this slight disconnect and it was a really thought-provoking read. I did feel that the end of the book was slightly less satisfying than it might have been. This is probably due to the nature of the storyline, but I was left feeling a little let down by the end.
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