WITH THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH memoir by Orange Prize shortlisted author Monique Roffey is published by Simon & Schuster on Thursday 23 June.
In the run-up to publication it has already garnered lots of media attention, including Monique's own essay in the Guardian Weekend Magazine, and a feature in Psychologies.
Julie Myerson says the following in the Observer:
'Monique
Roffey is an acclaimed fiction writer - her THE WHITE WOMAN ON THE
GREEN BICYCLE was shortlisted for last year's Orange Prize. Her honest,
self-exposing new memoir is about sex and about far more - it's a candid
exploration of the vulnerability of middle-age, as well as a fairly
brutal examination of the human heart and its endless capacity to be
broken…This book is astoundingly brave. It is funny. It speeds along. It
has magic at its heart - that indefinable sliver of human warmth and
hope that all the best, most searching memoirs seem to have. Moreover,
Roffey's somehow irrepressible willingness to share begins to seem
generous, infectious even…I found myself knocked off course in a rather
moving and indescribable way…she actually…makes a writerly choice to
remain "blind" because "I wanted to turn the darkness in me into prose".
Well, good. Because isn't that exactly what we need writers - the
brightest, most adventurous and self-scrutinising ones, like…Roffey - to
do: to take that same darkness and turn it into something so blazingly
alive that it can shine a little light on the rest of us?' -- Julie
Myerson, The Observer
Daisy Goodwin has this to say in the Sunday Times:
'WITH
THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH is a vivid, entertaining and unexpectedly
moving read about a middle-aged woman's attempt to find enlightenment
through sex. It is not coldly erotic like THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE
M, or unrepentantly horny like Samantha from SEX AND THE CITY. It is a
good deal more rueful and emotional.'
MORE PRAISE FOR WITH THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH
'WITH THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH is an important book. How many books explore erotic love fully, fearlessly and intelligently? None that I've read - until now. Monique Roffey's brave and poignant quest for the nature of love - erotic and romantic - will give you glimpses of your most intimate self. Buy it, read it, and if it doesn't turn you inside out, you may consider yourself dead.' -- Kapka Kassabova, author of STREET WITHOUT A NAME
'Intelligent, dark, thorny but redemptive book about sex.' -- Robert Rowland Smith, author of BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES
'From Craigslist to tantra classes, this is a heartbreaking and, at times, explicit memoir of rediscovery' -- Elle
'Less of Belle de Jour's lifestyle raunchiness and far more honesty about how sex feels - as opposed to how it looks…Roffey's writing soars when she's describing the intense grief she experienced at the end of the great love affair that prompted her journey …Roffey asks serious questions about what place sex has in modern relationships, and is blessed with admirable honesty.' -- Alexandra Heminsley, Independent on Sunday