The Swing of Things

By: Linda Keir

Narrated by: Lynn Barrington, Tristan James

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

“Somewhere between Tom Perrotta and Erica Jong lies The Swing of Things, a charming, sexy, and surprisingly tender romp through the dark side of wish fulfillment. I’ll never look at the other playground parents the same way again.” —Marcus Sakey

Told from the dual perspective of a husband and a wife, The Swing of Things is a sexy, provocative, pause-resisting novel about a suburban couple who wants out of their routine - but will they take things too far?

Attorney Jayne Larsen loves her stay-at-home husband. Eric is attentive and a great father to their daughter. He’s also unfailingly committed to their Wednesday date nights - but things have gotten too predictable.

Enter Theo and Mia Winters, the effortlessly cool, attractive couple who are the center of everyone’s attention. They are blissfully happy and ready to share their secret for keeping things spicy. But there are rules. And breaking them has consequences. As Jayne and Eric explore a more modern definition of marriage, they are forced to confront whether they’ve given up too much in the pursuit of trying to have it all.

©2018 Linda Keir (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

Cheesy performance

The story was ok. But what ruined it for me was the cheesy performance! They were awful.

Psychological Impacts of an Alternative Lifestyle

The premise of this book sounded interesting, since it was different from what I normally read. A couple, she a lawyer, he a stay at home dad, decide to sample the swinging lifestyle. This book deals with the emotional and physical effects on the couple.

Spoilers below, please be warned.

This is not a traditional erotic novel. While sex is described, the scenes are shortened so that I couldn't really see much of a payoff. In all fairness, the wife was actually manipulated into swinging. Her boredom with her "traditional" sex life, made her more amenable to suggestion. Had she been honest with her husband, the outcome would've been much different. The husband has his doubts, but he connects with someone else more deeply than he expected. They both were set up by a master manipulator with ulterior motives and he was able to compromise the wife's position at her law firm.

There is a great deal of exploring insight from the pair. Two authors write this book from differing points of view. For me, the book bogged down with the family bits from their daughter. It felt like a plot device to cause some tension. A great deal of time is allocated to their thoughts, expectations and fears of the lifestyle. Sometimes less is more. I personally didn't feel like this book was sexy. To contrast, I read another book with a collection of swinger stories. It was far shorter than this book, but felt far more realistic. It was also written by a male and female author team. They managed to put you in the story and feel what the couple's were experiencing. The Swing of Things was far tamer in this respect. The couples in that book were more interested in new experiences. In this book, it's a hook for the crime story. I could see the ending coming a mile away.

I read this book using immersion reading while listening to the audiobook. There was a male and female narrator team in this one as well. The female narrator did a wonderful job with her expressive voice. The male narrator sounded monotone without much vocal expression.

first half of the book really slow

The plot seemed nonexistent for more than half the book, then got interesting. But the characters were not relatable.

To each his/her own...

Swinging is one of those things that works for some and not for others. Of course blackmail isn’t usually part of the equation. My wife and I have done some over the years and it actually has helped us, just wish we had more playmates. Enjoy the book

Very, very good for this type of story

I almost want to give this story a 5 star review because, for this type and level of story, I thought it was very well done. The premise is very intriguing, and could very well happen, I think. Well thought out and on point, the story focuses on a relatively young couple with a darling 6 year old daughter, bored in their routine and predictable marriage, who allow themselves to get caught up in what at first appears to be a group of great, albeit somewhat daring, friends. As is usually the case, nothing is as it appears to be and, what at first appears to be fun and deliciously exciting, eventually turns into a horrible nightmare.

Great story line with well developed characters, the story elicited strong reactions in me, in particular my disgust and dislike for the main villain. I found myself muttering to myself more than once about what a dangerous creepy jerk he really was. Listening to this story for me was time well spent. Because of a number of negative reviews I was expecting less, so am glad I listened.

The narration wasn’t so great. The female voice was decent, but the male portrayal of Eric in particular, was pretty flat. That may have been on purpose to portray Eric as somewhat of a nice but very pliable and unimaginative guy, which is definitely the feeling I got about him. Anyway, I would say this book is well worth the listen.

Uhmm ah ahem

The story was so well laid out. I had no clue as to anything. I had to wait for the author to skillfully feed me each and every line. The content was definitely designed for mature persons. I can't say adults because the story shows that not all adults are mature. I highly recommend this book.

Really surprised me

Thought it would just be a smutty book, but man this book was a lot more . And the narrow toon was wonderful! Really recommend

not for dudes

Its not what i expected can't get past first or 2nd chapter. not for dudes !

Not a lot of story at all

There isn’t a lot of story in this book really. I bought it because the reviews were good but overall there isn’t any resolution to the story, just a whole lot of endless sex scenes

I've had better

It's the male reader was very robotic and lifeless for most of the book and the story fell pretty flat