Cosmo Lit Pick
Reviewed by Bonnie Cleaver
Ulterior Motives, by Lucienne Joy
The blurb on the back of this book promises “an irresistible combination of Almost French and The Bride Stripped Bare”, which had me hooked. A salacious, shocking read like Bride? Yes, please!
The main character, Coco, is an Australian journalist who, after a series of disastrous relationships, packs up her life and heads to the French Riviera to work as a presenter at Radio Côte d’Azur, an English radio station for expats. A hopeless romantic, Coco is busy pining after her (inconveniently) gay French friend, Jean-Luc, when a friend sets her up on a date with an American expat and lawyer, Jack Villeneuve.
Out of all the characters in the book, Jack is the most intriguing and multi-layered – he’s handsome, charming, well-travelled but at the same time you’re left with a niggling sense that something is not quite right.
Coco, however, is blind to this - swept off her feet by a tidal wave of endorphins, she finds herself accepting his spontaneous marriage proposal. It’s on their honeymoon in Bali that the darker, manipulative side of Jack’s personality starts to emerge – he lugs around enough pills to stock a pharmacy, is obsessive about unpacking his clothes when he should be off sipping cocktails on the beach, spends all day in bed reading while Coco languishes alone by the pool, and insists his new wife parade around the bedroom in skimpy red underwear, despite her embarrassment.
Arriving back home in France, their relationship unravels further, as Jack pushes his increasingly kinky sexual demands on Coco - from insisting she enact erotic fantasies from an S&M fairytale, to dirty talk, role play and watching graphic videos. Far from being turned on, Coco is alienated by her husband’s fascination with pain and punishment. It’s a slightly extreme version, but surprisingly believable version of how people can become strangers within a relationship, living together but separated by a vast emotional gulf.
To say any more would give the end away - which, after the tense, suspenseful storytelling for most of the book, was actually a bit of an anticlimax - the happy ending feels like it was awkwardly tagged on as an afterthought. This novel doesn’t quite reach The Bride Stripped Bare, but if you’re after a racy read, you’ll enjoy it.
