On a random weekend trip to our favorite local bookstore, Harper’s Books, in lovely downtown Lebanon, Tennessee, my wife peeked around the corner from me holding a copy of this book. “Hey, look…” she said, pointing to the big yellow letters on the front of the book. She’s from New Jersey, and spent many a family vacation in Cape May. A few years ago, she introduced me to the wonder of “Exit Zero.” So, it’s a special place to us, for reasons that are very different than how it’s special to the character in Chip Cheek’s Cape May.
I told her to throw it in my stack. She quickly replied, pointing out that it was a steamy romance novel. I insisted. Why not? Why can’t a burly, hairy bearded lumberjack-lookin’ man enjoy a good erotic scandal every once in a while? I hold no boundaries when it comes to storytelling – if it’s good, it’s good. And, romance is one of the things in our lives that really adds spice to our existence. So, I dug into the story, and once I did, I found it difficult to put it down.
Cape May is a raw, provocative portrayal of a young 1950s couple on the cusp of a sexual awakening, and the temptations that upturn their honeymoon and reshape their marriage.
So, yeah – let’s get this part out of the way early: these people stay fuckin’ in this book. You’re going to need to read this book somewhere in private because it’s probably going to have a physiological impact on you. This is probably too much information, but I probably coulda drilled a hole in concrete with that thang while I was reading this book. It is that steamy.
But, aside from the sexual tension that permeates throughout this book, it’s just a fun easy story. I wouldn’t say it’s light per se, but it’s digestible. I ended up with a certain fixation on our main characters – I couldn’t look away, so to speak…seeing how far these people were willing to go in the name of sexual awakening was quite enthralling. Do I think this is some deep meditation on the human condition? No, but it didn’t strike me as material that was meant to be that. It lands somewhere between ‘erotica’ and ‘a step by step guide for ruining your life in beautiful Cape May.’ If you can have some fun with this story and just let it rip, it plays to our most basic desires quite well, repercussions be damned.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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