JASMINE

Trace the curved line between love and obsession in this steamy novel.

Sor Avraham is content with his structured life: He and his wife Jasmine have settled into a comfortable partnership in their house by the ocean in Florida. Sor finds fulfillment as an English professor at a local university, a job that allows him to focus some of his repressed passion. He’s a model teacher, colleague and husband until a chance encounter with the mysterious and sensual Marguerite, a free-spirited artist and professor whose bohemian spirit has been temporarily tamed by marriage and two young boys. Marguerite and Sor quickly fall into a whirlwind affair, as Sor, who once exhibited precise control over his thoughts and emotions, is swept away on the tide of desire. The intense sexual encounters and lust-soaked emails fly between the two, disorienting Sor until he feels he has “lost his equilibrium.…He was no longer Sor Avraham.” His marriage and job fall apart as his fixation with Marguerite consumes him—he becomes infatuated with the smell of jasmine, Marguerite’s signature perfume. Then, as Marguerite slowly begins to draw away from Sor, eventually ending the affair, he recognizes himself as a man who has lost nearly everything. Aarons artfully portrays the demise of his lead character’s control in the stable world he once inhabited. Vivid characters enliven a compelling story that reveals Sor’s innermost thoughts and personal letters. The style and pacing of the narrative realistically parallel the timeline of Sor’s affair, while rising to meet his transformation from a controlled, settled husband into an adulterous obsessive. Eventually, the intense love scenes dim as the narrative resettles for Sor to consider the contentment he abandoned.

A well-crafted tale of passion, loss and the dangers of obsession.