Prologue
My stepmom, Elena, had always been a mystery to me.
She was thirty-eight, elegant, well-read, and ran a private book club out of our house every other week. The women who came over were all around her age — sophisticated, married, and clearly using the club as an excuse to talk about the kind of spicy romance books that would make most people blush.
I was twenty-five, home after college and working remotely, so I had a front-row seat to it all.
At first, I just thought it was funny — my proper stepmom reading filthy books in secret.
Then I started noticing the way she’d get quiet and flushed after the club meetings.
The way she’d leave certain books lying around where I could find them.
I started reading them too.
And the more I read, the more I started to see myself in the dominant, possessive book boyfriends she seemed to love so much.
My father was always traveling for work. He barely noticed her anymore. But I did.
I decided it was time to stop just reading the books.
It was time to start acting like them.