David Orsini's
Prisoners of Desire

Book Description  

In “The Subtleties of Seduction,” Part One of David Orsini’s novel PRISONERS OF DESIRE, a boat race on Newport, Rhode Island waters during the summer of 1920 initiates a scenario of scandal, malice, and duplicity. Linda Maguire, a young woman who has always subdued her wilder impulses, becomes infatuated with Ryan Turner, a reckless twenty-year-old youth. Linda’s engagement to Steven Bradford, a war hero and a promising lawyer, complicates her feelings for the two men. One afternoon, because she wants to be in the company of both men at the same time, she urges her fiancé to accept Ryan’s challenge to a sailboat race. But she is dismayed when Tracy, her younger sister, joins Ryan in the boat which he will be navigating. Instantly, she understands that Ryan and Tracy are lovers and that Ryan was merely playing a game with her when he roused her need for him. Ryan and Tracy have, in fact, devised the scenario of the boat race so that they can be alone together. What finally happens to Ryan and Tracy takes the rebellious couple as well as Linda by surprise.

In “The Complexities of Seduction,” Part Two of David Orsini’s Novel PRISONERS OF DESIRE, Tracy Maguire Turner devises a scenario in which she takes a lover, Ethan Lonergan, as a way to avenge herself against her husband, Ryan, who is unfaithful, self-centered, and—at the young age of twenty-five—cynical and world-weary. Tracy’s revenge has a double edge. By partnering with Ethan, she is pushing back her schoolgirl adulation of Ryan. She is also choosing in Ethan the husband of Ava Lonergan, the beautiful debutante and film star who happens to be Ryan’s current paramour. As promiscuous as she is reckless and uncaring, Ava lives for the pleasures of the moment. She enjoys being with Ryan because he is as ruthless and as subversive as she is.

      At first, Tracy and Ethan protect the secrecy of their affair. But their secret affair generates complications that they did not anticipate. Ethan’s affection for Tracy becomes a dangerous obsession. Tracy’s desire for Ethan becomes immoderate and exciting. Eventually, their sensual relationship becomes apparent to both Ryan and Ava. Resentful at first of Tracy’s and Ethan’s infidelities, Ryan and Ava gradually consent to a marriage experiment that, according to Tracy and Ethan, each of them has already initiated. That experiment involves an exchange of partners. These exchanges will set each of the married couples free to enjoy sensual adventures with a new partner and to savor the exhilaration of that rebellious intimacy. To abide by the rules of this experiment, each partner must regard this unorthodox intimacy as casual as it is temporary.

      For a while, this experiment brings new pleasures and longed-for exhilaration to Tracy with Ethan and to Ava with Ryan. But, to their surprise, Tracy and Ethan fall in love with each other. Theirs is not a conventional love. It anchors its pleasures to sado-masochistic abuse as well as to nights of sensual pleasure. With each passing week, their love becomes even more dangerous and rebellious. Nevertheless, its glamour and its ecstasy goad Ava’s envy and jealousy. Eventually, this dangerous and rebellious love ignites Ethan’s and Ryan’s fury and imperils Tracy’s safety.