Customer Reviews

Playing Away

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

What happens when a good girl has an affair? Read this book and your questions will be answered. Playing Away is a wonderful novel about a fairy-tale marriage and what happens after. Highly recommended to British Literature fans or for those who want to read about the married side of Bridget Jones.

Connie Green Baker has it all: a loving husband, fabulous friends, nice home, great life. So why the affair? It baffles Connie the most -- she loves her husband and is not unhappy in her marriage. But once she meets sexy, uninhibited John Harding at a work conference, something stirs inside her (literally!). Connie suddenly has a one-track mind on the John Harding Train and, try as she might, she can't (or doesn't want to) get off. As an adulteress, Connie again experiences the crazy passionate drama that was a part of her former life, the life she led before she got married. Which is not necessarily a good thing....

And then there are her friends: Sam, Daisy, Lucy and Rose -- each unique in personalities who offer advice and support for dear Connie, who has found herself in quite a predicament. Readers will laugh and smile in recognition, but will also shake their heads in dismay. The story follows Connie through the many stages of her comfortable and seemingly boring marriage and her disappointment of the lustful, bodice-ripping fairy-tale she imagined it to be. Playing Away is more than just a testimony to the awesome dynamics of a marriage -- it's a gritty portrayal of the toll it takes on a restless mind and the mistakes that can be made to fix it.

Connie has it all and what many wish for meaning perfect husband, successful career and great friends. However, she risks it all for sultry sex with a player at work who seems to want nothing but her body. Bad Connie but a thrilling read! Buy this book if you are happily yet somewhat restlessly married and are asking the question now what. Experience Connie's affair instead of having one. Save yourself from the agony of cheating as you see how tormented Connie becomes when her so called happy life turns into a self created mess. Can she pull it back together.. I'm not telling..

Is there such a thing as Happily Ever After? That's what Connie Green -- the spunky heroine in Playing Away -- wonders. More importantly, why would a confident and successful career woman with a seemingly perfect husband want to have a sleazy affair with a I-can-get-any-woman-I-want-whenever-I-want man? These are the things that the precocious heroine is battling with. Connie cannot resist John Harding's enigmatic and tenacious nature. Before she knows it, she has begun a steamy and dangerous affair that could make or destroy her life. Connie is confused. She doesn't know what she wants. So she seeks advise from her friends, all of which are too preoccupied with their own love lives -- or lack thereof. Will Connie come to her senses, or will she throw caution to the wind and jeopardize her marriage?

This novel made laugh and cry. There were some scenes in which Connie and John engaged into some pretty racy sex. But there were funny and touching moments as well. I loved Connie's friends -- their get-togethers and witty conversations felt as though I was watching an episode of Sex and the City. However, I frowned at the fact that Connie seemed a little too desperate about John and degraded herself most of the time. It was painful. But the sharp writing and witty characters are the force in this magnificent novel. Playful, sexy, perverse and with a particular brand of sly naivete all its own, Playing Away is a reading investment. I highly recommend it.

Connie and Luke have a marriage everyone is envious of, and both recognize how lucky they are. But she meets a sexy, dangerous man and cheats in the name of "what if HE is actually The One?". She is selfish and confused, risking her marriage, reputation and health by continuing a sexual relationship with a drunken womanizer. This sounds like the same old story.
But its not.
Connie's actions speak loudly to her close friends, though she is ignorant to her motivations. The sex scenes are dirty fun, but what she faces when her husband walks out the door is when the truly interesting reading beings.
The feelings of loss Connie experiences and what she goes through while mourning her potentially lost marriage to the wonderful Luke, is also reflected in the surrounding relationships by her friends. The scenes are hard and real, sometimes ironic and humorous. And the book may revolve around Connie, but there are multiple relationships and interactions betweens friends & lovers that dance around and balance the sometimes extreme emotion of the central character.
A lesson learned here is that there are always consequences to your actions, no matter how sly you are. Honesty is the best policy, whether it be confessing your mistakes or being more frank with your friends about thier dangerous flaws.
I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a mix of romantic idealism, explicit dirty sex scenes, raunchy fun between girlfriends, and a moral dilemma.

This book is a must read for anyone who is married or in a commited relationship. It helped me to realise what I have already and why I should never jeopardise it. At first I disliked Connie because of her lack of remorse during her affair by the end of the book I was coming around to liking the new improved Connie. I think everyone will get something out of this book and relate to it in some way. Can't wait to read her next book!

This book was fabulous! Couldn't put it down. It's funny, sad, obnoxious, sexy and witty- all in one story. Can't wait to read more from this author!

You have to hate Connie Green. Shes very desirable, happily married, has the world at her feet . . . and straight away she falls for a man we all know she shouldnt go near. Lesson One  Sex is more powerful than love.

Theres nothing to like about Connies dilemma. She deserves all she gets. Cant she see this Johns just out for all he can get, using her? So, we romp through the pages of this touching, wrenching and very funny book as Connie continues with an affair were all screaming at her to stop. If only we all had the same insight to our own lives and behaviors. Lesson Two  Looking in is very different from being on the spot.

There is no new story here, affairs are common (so I'm told). Certainly the wonderful writing of Adele Parks gives us a new insight to the situation and a new appreciation of the consequences of just a little of anything, but depending on where your sympathies lie youll be on the edge of your seat in the last chapter. Will she get away with it? Will she be forgiven? Personally, I hope not.

It is rare to love a book in which you hate the lead character. This is what I felt about Playing Away. The characters may not all be likeable, but theyre great, as is the sex and humor. Lesson Three  There are a million and one ways for a novel to be entertaining.

This book no doubt followed the path that Bridget Jones carved. It is at times superficial. The female characters can seem like they were chosen from a girlfriend round-up (the gorgeous one, the earth mother, the workaholic, the insecure one, the gay man). The things Connie thinks, says, and does frequently make you cringe.

BUT, this book is also incredibly insightful as it looks at the statement "good girls have affairs, too." Adele Parks reflects the self-indulgence, the lack of introspection, the unnamable dissatisfaction/wanting that can plague any successful young woman after she has everything anyone could ever want. I was this woman (luckily, before marriage) and nearly sabotaged the best relationship I ever had. Anyone who has ever been afraid of being content will identify with Connie.

Ms. Parks smartly makes the motivations in this story a bit more complex than I described. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that you will giggle as she dresses for her affair, squirm as she makes dreadfully obvious (to everyone else) mistakes, and cry by the end of the book.

Connie Green, married to a wonderful man Luke for one year, meets a walking stag John Harding in Paris on a business trip. She makes it clear to him that she is a married woman but he doesn't care. He just has one thing on his mind--sex. Connie knows that the one person good for her is Luke. But she gives in to John's sexual wiles with hopes that he will come in time to romance her which is less likely to happen. Her close friend Lucy, who has had her share of married lovers, gives her the 411 on being involved with a married man. But Connie buys too much into the fantasy which destroys her peace of mind and she has to come face to face with herself, her husband and friends.
In addition to what is happeneing to Connie, her friend Daisy is engaged to be married while another friend Rose(sister to Daisy) has her own set of marital problems.
This book is a good read. The author does a superb job covering marriage and infidelity in her fictional debut. This book was too hard to put down. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen next in the book.

Connie Baker has the kind of fairytale life that other women envy: she is beautiful, has great fashion style, a great job, wonderful friends, and a loving husband of just barely a year.

Then she embarks on a passionate affair with a slutty male colleague. Instead of taking it for what it is - a bunch of shagging - she thinks that John is her destiny, and starts to fall in love with him, not giving a second thought to her devoted husband Luke, who has been putting in too much time in his thriving restoration business.

When she discovers that she is not the only one in John's life, she is devastated. I guess his comment that she is his 100th lover and the fact that they only get together once a week has slipped by her... Anyhow, after this devastating news, and the fact that he is suddenly distant, they end the affair and life goes on. News that her best friend's husband has run off with another woman cuts deep - especially to Luke who cannot forgive his friend for the infidelity.

John suddenly wants Connie back and Luke finds out about the deception. Once Luke is gone, she realizes that she was her destiny all along, and will have to leap through hoops to regain his love and trust again.

It is hard to like Connie. Despite seemingly having it all, she is so full of herself, which makes if difficult to feel she deserves a second chance. I would also have liked to see the characters of John and Luke more fleshed out. Particularly Luke, as he garners more than a casual mention throughout the book - no real time is spent to define his character. It is not the definitive book on the subject, but a quick and interesting character study nonetheless.