Be Mine

October 2, 2006
It all starts with an anonymous Valentine's Day love note that Sherry Seymour, a Michigan community college English teacher and recent empty-nester, finds in her school mailbox. Mystified and flattered, Sherry lets her husband, Jon, in on the notes as they accumulate, resulting in a dramatic uptick in their sex life that advances in kinkiness after Sherry's son's friend tips off Sherry about the alleged identity of the note writer. An affair ensues, aided by Sherry's rental of an apartment near school (to avoid the commute between campus and the Seymour home in the country) and Jon's encouragement (her trysts excite him). But Sherry's life begins to spin out of control as she becomes more entangled with her possessive lover and learns who really wrote the notes. However, the tension Kasischke (The Life Before Her Eyes
) cleverly builds throughout the narrative collapses at the book's climax, when Sherry and Jon are drawn into the aftermath of an accidental death. Save for the far-fetched ending, Kasischke has proven herself again to be a bold chronicler of dark obsession.

December 1, 2006
Twenty years after "Fatal Attraction", a dead rabbit on the first page is still a red flag for a seemingly monogamous marriage. Middle-aged community college professor Sherry Seymour and her husband, Jon, are adjusting to life as empty nesters when an anonymous valentine appears in Sherry's campus mailbox. After receiving increasingly suggestive notes, Sherry begins buying new clothes and viewing each man she sees as a potential paramour. Her husband, meanwhile, becomes increasingly passionate as he fantasizes about his wife with another man. Make-believe makes way for betrayal when Sherry takes her husband's suggestions to heart and starts an affair with a colleague. Novelist and poet Kasischke ("White Bird in a Blizzard") does a good job of building the domestic tension, and while an explosion is imminent, the way in which it is finally ignited comes as a surprise. Dead animals (rabbits, squirrels, a deer) litter Sherry's life, each decaying body a reminder of the passing of time and the consequences of carelessness. Recommended for larger public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/06.]Karen Kleckner, Deerfield P.L., IL

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2006
English teacher Sherry Seymour has been comfortably married for a long time, and now, like many emptynesters, is having difficulty adjusting to her only son being away at college. She drifts through the tedium of her days until she receives the note in her school mailbox that reads, "Be Mine." Sherry is intrigued. She has no idea who could have sent it, but the idea she has a secret admirer appeals to her. She's emotionally vulnerable, and as the notes become increasingly familiar, and as her husband discloses his fantasy that she should have an affair, Sherry determines to approach the fellow teacher she believes is courting her. So begins Sherry's spiral into dark and sensual delights as she risks everything: her family, her marriage, and herself. What makes this erotic thriller disturbing and, therefore, successful is how convincingly Kasischke renders Sherry's life and feelings so eerily normal and familiar, ensuring the unsettling portents are all but unnoticed until it is too late.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)