Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Affair by Colette Freedman

The Affair by Colette Freedman

The Affair

by Colette Freedman

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2013, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

After eighteen years of marriage, Kathy Walker has settled into a pattern of comfortable routines--ferrying her two teenagers between soccer practice and piano lessons, running a film production business with her husband, Robert, and taking care of the beautiful Boston home they share. Then one day, Kathy discovers a suspicious number on her husband's phone. Six years before, Kathy accused Robert of infidelity--a charge he vehemently denied--and almost destroyed their marriage in the process.

Now Kathy must decide whether to follow her suspicions at the risk of losing everything, or trust the man with whom she's entwined her past, present, and future. As she grapples with that choice, she is confronted with surprising truths not just about her relationship, but about her friends, family, and her own motivations.

Skillfully crafted and deeply insightful, The Affair sensitively explores the complexities of love and the challenge of ever knowing another person fully, even as we endeavor to understand our own deepest longings.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Playwright Freedman presents a realistic and deft tale of infidelity, miscommunication, and conflicting emotions in her structurally compelling debut novel." - Publishers Weekly

"Playwright-turned-novelist Freedman presents this well-crafted novel about three people caught in an affair: the wife, the husband, and the mistress. Told from each person's perspective in turn, we see the same scenes played out, but each time the story is retold we discover something more about each character. We see the lies they tell each other, and, just as important, the lies they tell themselves. The story plays out like a three-act drama and includes an unexpected denouement in the final scene." - Dominica Plummer, Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, VT

This information about The Affair was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Colette Freedman

Colette Freedman is an internationally produced playwright with over 15 produced plays, including Sister Cities, which was the hit of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe. She has co written, with international bestselling novelist Jackie Collins, the play Jackie Collins Hollywood Lies. In collaboration with the New York Times bestselling author Michael Scott, she has co-written the thriller The Thirteen Hallows.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.