Be Mine: An Erotic Literary Thriller Where Forbidden Passion Threatens Everything

by Laura Kasischke

On Valentine’s Day, Sherry finds an anonymous note in her mailbox: be mine. As the notes continue, Sherry becomes more and more charged by the idea that she can inspire such feelings. Her twenty-year marriage is routine and she feels old, aimless, and empty now that her son is in college. When she discovers who her admirer is, she begins a wildly passionate affair with him. But her son’s childhood friend is witness to the affair, her best friend is strangely silent, and her husband is playing a disturbing game of titil­lation and encouragement. Soon events spiral out of Sherry’s control, threatening not only her marriage but also her son and her home. This deeply erotic thriller explores how little we know ourselves and those we live with and what we risk when we step away from our social personas and allow passion to control our lives.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Thriller, Book Club, Roman, Contemporary

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Laura Kasischke is an American fiction writer and American poet with poetry awards and multiple well reviewed works of fiction. Her work has received the Juniper Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Prize, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, and the Beatrice Hawley Award. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as several Pushcart Prizes.

Her novel The Life Before Her Eyes is the basis for the film of the same name, directed by Vadim Perelman, and starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. Kasischke's work is particularly well-received in France, where she is widely read in translation. Her novel A moi pour toujours (Be Mine) was published by Christian Bourgois, and was a national best seller.

Kasischke attended the University of Michigan and Columbia University. She is also currently a Professor of English Language and of the Residential College at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She lives in Chelsea, Michigan, with her husband and son.

Reviews

[Sarra · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't erotic, and it wasn't much of a thriller (despite being billed as both). Nobody in this book is even remotely likeable...or, really, particularly believable. I didn't understand why any of them were doing what they were doing; at no point in the book were any of the characters' actions sensical. I didn't find the end implausible so much as frustrating. Why two stars, then? It was oddly compelling - I really wanted to know where the story would go; I was compelled to keep reading until I finished, so there's that.

[Eastofoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one messed story! If you’re looking for a very disturbing, creepy but original read pick up this book. It’s erotic fiction as opposed to erotic romance and it’s not at all what you’d expect in terms of story line outcomes. It’s about what happens when you let a fantasy become reality and all the repercussions it can have in your life and on those around you—no pretty pink world here.

It’s the story of a middle-aged woman who has everything she thinks she wants in life but finds that her life is dull and needs a bit of spice. Someone starts sending her anonymous love notes –that’s a wacked story in itself—-and she thinks she knows who it is. She tells her husband about it as a joke and he tells her to find this guy and have sex with him—twisted story #2. This guy she has the affair with is a nutcase—freaky story there too. Then there’s her son’s childhood friend and that’s where the proverbial sh-t really hits the fan! All these subplots gave me different levels of the heebeegeebees.

It’s told in the first person but this actually didn’t bother me and I’m not a particular fan of first person writing. It actually adds to the austerity and creepiness of the story. The outcome of all the subplots will haunt you at the end and make you really wonder how well you know those around you from your family to your friends and does all the work you put into parenting your children really make a difference.

It’s worth a 4.5 for the goose bumps, creep out factor and surprise ending alone.

**warning: not for the faint of heart, some graphic sex, leaves “a bad taste in your mouth” in some parts

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this book brilliant is that it is the most honest portrayal of how a woman thinks...while the chick lit market is flooded with feel good books about women's friendships, any woman will admit to herself that women are jealous, catty bitches who see each other as competition...this book blends those thoughts realistically with the angst of aging, the dwindling of passion in a long term relationship and the desire to be young again while being aware of the youth all around you.

Middle aged Sherry is coming to terms with the fact that her son is an adult and going off to college, leaving her and her long term husband Jon as empty nesters. She is a teacher and profoundly aware of the youth of her students, the fact that her best friend Sue is letting herself go and that she herself spends hours at teh gym to retain her looks. The women in her office appear a bit jealous of her and when she starts receiving notes from a secret admirer, her husband is so turned on by the idea that she begins an affair with the man she believes has written them...what follows is the unraveling of everything she has believed her life to be in an almost Hitchcock like psychological thriller.

Women, put down those juvenile 50 Shades books....this erotic thriller is the real deal. ;) Women don't want to be used and emslaved..what we want is to be desired...this book hits at the very heart of what women really want....Laura Kisischke is brutally, darkly, honest at what truly beats at the core of feminity.

[Leoni Dempsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 star read for me overall ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - a quick read which kept you wanting to read to see what happened next. Quite a disturbing read at times - in particular, the husband’s behaviour following his wife receiving the notes and the identity of the sender of the notes which you find out part way through the book were quite shocking and strange. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters in this novel, the writing style was quite overly descriptive at times, and I found the ending a little rushed! Both the erotic and thriller elements of this novel were also slightly lacking for me. Not an awful book but not one I would likely read again.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished reading "Be Mine," a novel by Laura Kasischke. It's the second novel I've read by this author in as many weeks (the first one was "Mind of Winter;" more on that one in a later post.) Where do I begin?

The main character of "Be Mine," Sherry Seymour (great name, that, kind of like the sweetness of cooking sherry mixed with a supermodel-y sounding last name), opens the story with her musings on a variety of things that I could identify with as a middle-aged mom with one child who's started college this year and another who has just three more years to go in high school. In the novel, Sherry's son Chad is 18 and is away at college. Sherry teaches English at a local junior college, where her best friend, Sue, (who really isn't) also teaches and her son's childhood best friend, Garrett, takes classes in the auto shop. Sherry has been married to her husband, Jon (I've always found this spelling to be a bit wimpy without the 'h';) for twenty years. This is both the theme and the mantra throughout the novel ("We've been married for twenty years, blah blah blah").

I wanted to like Sherry, because as previously mentioned, we have many things in common. But as the story progresses. the character is illuminated in an unflattering light. A big issue of mine: Sherry has no perception of herself as a "self," or as a fully functioning individual separate from those she is obligated to (her husband and son), those she is friends with (Sue and a couple of others) and those who find her attractive (seemingly every male in her immediate orbit, which I found disturbing and a little lame at the same time). I mean, really, unless you actually ARE a supermodel, and even if you do work out on the elliptical machine regularly as Sherry does, would every guy in your life be sniffing after a middle-aged working mom & wife? I think not.

Until she starts receiving notes, asking her to "Be Mine," Sherry's life appears to be fairly satisfying; her roles and her reactions to them seem clearly defined and understood, including the stifling and over-nurturing approach to parenting her son, Chad, and her self-satisfied yet bemused continental drift through her marriage with Jon. However, when the notes start appearing in her mailbox, an identity crisis begins for Sherry, who struggles with the selves she sees reflected back from the males in her life: Bram, the auto shop instructor whom she believes is sending her the notes, which goads her into a very ill-thought-out affair with him (and seriously, who up-ends a twenty-year marriage in the blink of an eye just because you think some guy is sending you mash notes, and then you go fall into bed with that guy?); Garrett, who seems to see her both as a surrogate for his deceased mother and an object of his innocent crush (though both Bram and Garrett both discuss how "hot" they find Sherry, though for obviously different reasons); Chad, her son, who seems both drawn to and repelled by her smothering mother-love, yet doesn't want to share that love with anyone else (as poor orphan Garrett finds out the hard way); Jon, her husband, who seems blandly perfect, but after twenty years of marriage, needs the thrill of another man's interest to re-light his sexual pilot light for his wife; and lastly, Sherry's father who doesn't seem to regard her at all as he quietly wastes away in a nursing home. In a lesser role, there is John Z, a fellow faculty member, who Sherry believes is gay because he seems to have no interest in her except as a colleague. The only female Sherry has any sort of relationship with is her best friend of twenty years (this twenty year thing with her husband and friend is more of a curse than a blessing, as it turns out) Sue, whose cruel joke is the catalyst for the entire story.

Sherry's affair with Bram (and this is not a spoiler because the book jacket even mentions it) quickly spirals out of control, most likely because once her "peaceful" routine is shattered, the lack of her sense of self sends her seeking it from him and Jon and Garrett and Chad. Who is Sherry when someone isn't considering her hot, or an object of desire, something to dominate sexually, or their daughter, or their mother/wife/cook/housekeeper? She exists only to serve those around her and she never gets angry about it. She is by turns puzzled, hurt, turned on, worried, or nurturing, but as her son states later in the book, she just can't stand up for herself or assert an opinion. She's almost like one of those women who've been raised being told how pretty they are, to be nothing but somebody's object or ornament, but that doesn't ring true with the background that the author has created for her main character, so I couldn't quite hang my hat on that idea all the way through.

Sherry's lack of self leads to her unwitting endorsement of the events that Sue sets in motion. When she has to rely on her own confidence and her own decision-making (she even acknowledges during the denouement that her husband took care of everything in their lives; home repairs, their finances, the squirrels that made nests in their attic, everything; she ultimately has to rely on him to take care of something really bad that she obliquely caused), the construct that she believes to be her life ends up being her life sentence and her willingness to continually give away her power over herself becomes her undoing.

[prisca💋 · Rating 4 out of 5]

pas le meilleur de l’autrice, mais l’ambiance est toujours ultra étrange comme j’aime.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is billed as an erotic thriller.

in the first 50 pages, a rabbit is 'smeared' across a snowy drive, the main character ruminates on her life while watching a hawk kill a bird, and compares child-rearing while reminiscing about a cat killing a rat. None of these images I find particularly erotic or thrilling!

I found the main character boring, self obsessed and so far removed from anything I find interesting about life (who'd want to move out of the country into the city?!?!?) that I really didn't want to read on.

Not one for me!

[Marina Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet's version of a psychological thriller. Loved the slow build-up, the complex familial relationships, and still thinking of it several days after finishing the book. But I was a bit disappointed with the ending.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be Mine by Laura Kasischke
Harvest, Orlando
2007


Be Mine by Laura Kasischke is a story about Sherry Seymour: a middle-aged English professor, a wife of twenty years and a mother-turned-empty nester. Sherry is content in her average, middle-aged life. But this is not an average, middle-age story. On Valentine’s Day, Sherry finds a note in her inbox scrawled with the words, “Be mine.” The idea of a secret admirer titillates Sherry’s imagination, and her husband’s loins. Excited by the idea of his wife being the focus of another man’s amorous intentions, Jon encourages Sherry to seek out her petitioner. As the notes become more frequent and intense, the notion of a lover settles nicely into Mrs. Seymour’s psyche. Through some seductive reasoning and a strong implication from her son’s childhood friend, Sherry finds her man and begins her libidinous affair. Laden with post-coital guilt, Sherry confesses her adulterous trysts to her husband. And he likes it! He even asks her to talk about it while he has sex with her. And she does. Spreading herself [thin] between her possessive lover and her perpetually aroused husband, Sherry finds her behavior makes her feel extremely sexy, slightly bamboozled and a little sore. The “coitus descriptus” is enough to bring any middle-aged woman out of menopause, with descriptions steamier than night sweats in July.

“He kissed my shoulder, where he’d bitten me before. He ran his tongue down the inside of my arm to the elbow. He moved down to my legs, kissed the skinned knees – first the left, which had begun to heal, and the right, which stung under his lips and made me flinch. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then moved back up, kissed my shoulder again, and then moved down my arm, from the elbow to my wrist. He kissed it. He bit it lightly. He took the wrist in his hand and pinned it over my head, then the other. He said….”

I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination, although Kasischke fills in the gaps graphically.

Sherry Seymour continues with her double-duty sex life while the winter melts into spring. She seems to show little remorse from her infidelity, admitting she is having fun; besides what’s the harm if her husband doesn’t mind?

Meanwhile Sherry struggles with her maternal guilt. Her son, Chad returns from college and she doesn’t recognize the boy in the man before her. Kasischke’s poetic and heartfelt descriptions of the mother-child relationship are spot on. She is able to capture the subtle nuances of motherhood in concise and effective passages. The dichotomy of philandering wife to devoted mother creates a sense of unrest, ultimately adding to the brilliantly built suspense of the novel. Kasischke erects a solid, likeableness in Sherry Seymour. When Sherry’s husband takes his fantasies to a new, dangerous level, sympathy for Sherry swells. Both men involved demand more of Sherry, sending her life into a tailspin that threatens her job, her marriage and her son.

Be Mine is an erotic and poignant novel, with a building suspense that erupts in an unforgettable and unexpected climax.

[Diglee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tellement mitigée sur ce livre. Si les 80-100 premières pages m’ont laissée haletante et m’ont captivée, le déploiement de l’histoire m’a énormément déçue.
J’en ai assez de ces histoires de femmes qui ne s’entendent pas, de femmes qui se mesurent les une aux autres et qui ne trouvent de validation que dans le regard érotisant d’un homme. Quand l’intrigue a commencé à se dérouler je suis allée de déceptions en déception. Le personnage principal qui fait une fixette sur son corps et juge sans cesse les autres femmes, même sa soit disant meilleure amie depuis toujours, les scènes de violence sexuelle commises par son mari qui ne sont jamais dénoncées comme telles (une scène est une scène de viol conjugal...), cette mère amoureuse de son fils... je n’ai aimé aucune des décisions de cette femme qui laisse les hommes diriger sa vie, de son mari à son amant en passant par son fils.

C’est si dommage.

Dommage car l’écriture de Kasischke est onirique, poétique et acérée.
Au moins, si l’histoire m’a déçue, il y a avait de la littérature.

[Mattie · Rating 2 out of 5]

honestly I found the characters rather dull and the main character was a real hellcat but for some reason I kept reading because I wanted to know how it ended… the ending was another wild disappointment

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ty book club for making me read this bc I never would have otherwise. And I liked it!!! God protect me from ladies in love with their own son and people who can’t communicate directly and suburban violence!!! Xo

[Barbara The MarSienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laura Kasischke sait manier l'art des mots pour créer un malaise, un crescendo dans les émotions de ses personnages qui sont, avouons le, un peu des psychopathes.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently purchased a Kindle Fire, and I decided to explore my public library's eBook checkout system by trying out this book. From time to time, I tend to be compelled to read a novel involving infidelity (for reasons still unknown), and this one sounded interesting...

...but it was overall really weird, and so over the top, that it made me fear that people like this truly exist in the world.

The Highlights:
- When Sherry receives a note from a secret admirer at the college where she works, she's led to believe that it's one of the instructors in the auto shop. She tells her husband, who encourages her to have an affair with him. So, she does.
- This inspires the husband to want to have sex with Sherry more often -- until he realizes that they weren't just role-playing. This marriage has serious communication issues if one wants to pretend to have an affair and the other takes the recommendation literally.
- Sherry finds out that her auto shop lover didn't write the note -- her best friend did in a twisted joke to lift her spirits a bit. Apparently, it went a little too far...
- Auto shop lover wants her to leave her husband, which she doesn't want to do. Her husband ultimately scares him off...
- ...around the time their son learns of the affair. Unfortunately, he incorrectly assumes it's with a student at the college that is his age. The two guys go out for drinks, he tells him to leave his mother alone, and accidentally kills him in a violent scuffle.
- Their smart son decides to bury the guy in his backyard. When their parents discover this, they have a garden built over the body and tell their son to go away and not tell them where he is so he'll be safe.

I'll give Kasischke some credit; I did read this book quickly because I had to see how the story could get even more messed up. But, I can't say I enjoyed the book. It was a lot like the movie Unfaithful. Some steamy scenes in the beginning grab your interest, but then it gets weird and people get killed, which totally ruins the reason you were intrigued in the first place. Needless to say, because of this, I will be hesitant to pursue a book with a similar plotline in the future.

[Susan Mackie Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

"That's how it is with anything you love. It takes everything you've got. It rips the time right out of your hands. It requires your whole heart." This was one of the last lines of "Be Mine", and it will stay with me for a long time. I love Laura Kasischke's writing for her beautiful prose, her vivid characters, and for the way she always keeps me guessing until the end. As soon as I finished "The Raising", I ordered as many of her novels as I could find and came across this interesting novel.

I must admit that I almost didn't finish "Be Mine". As a therapist, I have witnessed the horrible ripple effect of marital infidelity, and reading a novel about a woman my age who risked everything for a brief affair with a younger man was not my first choice. Sherry Seymour is a well-liked English professor at a local college, who starts to receive anonymous love notes in her mailbox at the office. Believing that the much younger auto mechanics professor is the author of these beautiful notes, she begins an affair with him. I found myself disgusted with Sherry almost from the beginning. She and her husband, Jon, have been married for over twenty years and still love each other deeply. They have a wonderful son who attends college in California and a beautiful home. Most people would say they have it all, and it made no sense to me that she would risk losing it all for.....What? A few moments of passion? An ego boost? It just didn't seem worth it to me. I was tempted to put the book down, but I was glad that I finished it. "Be Mine" is more than just a steamy fantasy for bored housewives. It is a thoughtful cautionary tale of the consequences of our actions, and how they affect the people we love. It explores the relationships we build with others over a lifetime, and how fragile they can be when we make selfish decisions. It also warns the reader against making assumptions and acting on the assumptions.....the results can be deadly.

[Jess ✨ℬℴℴк ∞❤∞ ℒℴvℯr✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, first off I have to say that I did not finish this book and I'm not saying it is a bad book. It's just that this book was such a downer and depressing that after 30 pages I had to stop because it seemed to be less a valentines romance and much more of a lament about this woman's life.

The writing style was nice and fluid and if the character's life wasn't one death or disappointment after another I probably would have liked it or at least finished it.

For me, it is a huge insult to a book if I cannot finish it because I have this need to finish any book that I have started. So, if I don't finish it, you know it was BAD!

[Plum-crazy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compelling read but it doesn't seem right somehow to say I enjoyed it when I found the characters so unlikeable. The back cover says it's a "Compelling, erotic thriller". Well, yes as I said its compelling but erotic? No, for me it was a sordid & tawdry tale of a self-obsessed woman. Credible? Hmmm...I'm not sure that after twenty years of marriage, the couple could so misunderstand each others intentions.

Like Sherry & co or not, there's no denying the story did have had me gripped. Sherry's "indiscretions" were always going to end badly, & though I was wishing for her comeuppance I never envisaged things ending the way they did.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this read because the of the title and the cover and the summary on the inside of the jacket. Sounded like a tale of a married woman swayed by a secret admirer. Well, that is how it appears but the actually tale is quite sordid and rather dark in spots. Really is not the light and airy read I was expecting. I rated it with two stars because of the troubling spots and that I dont think I really, truly 'liked' any character introduced. Everyone was a jerk in their own way.

[Maddi · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I admit that the book started out a little slow to me... as I kept wondering why the affair hadn't started yet...I appreciated the delay add the author set up a background that would be more understood as the plot thickened. By the 3rd section I was on the edge of my seat knowing that something twisted was about to happen and wondering what it could be and I was shocked multiple times.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a love/ hate relationship with this book. Often times it was beautifully written, relatable and wonderful. Other times it was boring, slow and terrible.

I loved the authors previous work, so I tried this one. I was really annoyed with the amount of typos - it seems petty, but it was distracting and I expect more from a prolific author.

Overall, not worth the time.

[elysenbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

bizarrement j’ai beaucoup aimé, l’écriture est juste parfaite, j’ai été vraiment absorbé par l’histoire qui prend une tournure que je ne pensais pas arrivé
quelques petits plots twist pas mal !
découverte de l’autrice, j’aimerais en lire d’avantage

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty lightweight, but surprisingly readable. Better than I expected but not one to give too much thought to. Read and move on....

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have come with a sexual assault trigger warning. Several characters in this book. I opened this thinking it was more or less a mystery type of book, but really it was mostly romance. Some very graphic parts to it.

This author is from my home town, her son and my sister in the same class back in school. I was so excited to find that we had a book by her in my basement when I came home for the holiday break. It was fun reading about the actual local bar- Stivers. Genuinely it wasn’t poorly written and I liked the twist at the end, but yikes I think this could be really traumatizing to several women in my life if they were to unsuspectingly come across this.

[Cocoontale · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5/5
Pas le meilleur de Kasischke. Présenté comme une sorte de thriller, les rebondissements tardent à venir et l'histoire est, somme toute, assez plate.

Cependant, je pense que le plus grand intérêt de cette lecture réside dans toutes les réflexions que l'auteure amène sur la place d'une femme dans un couple, le désir, l'infidélité et ce que cela peut apporter de positif et négatif, son rôle de mère bien rangée qui s'effrite lorsque l'enfant prend son envol... C'est plutôt rare de découvrir les véritables pensées de femmes dans cette situation et j'ai trouvé ces passages poignants.

Thèmes : St Valentin, infidélité, réflexions féminines

[Lauren B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was the lowest rated on Goodreads that I had on my bookshelf, and I can see why.
I didn't particularly like the writing style, but it flowed okay.
It wasn't really a thriller, admittedly I didn't expect the twist at the end, but it wasn't how I thought the book would go.
Bram reminded me of a particularly nasty ex so I despised his character... and I didn't like how that part of the story ended either.
However, I did finish it and it kept me intrigued, despite the disappointing ending.

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the Kindle version. I liked the book but will have to say it was a little disturbing to this Christian mind of mine. There was a lot of sin involved and I just had to ask myself; how do people manage to get themselves in such messes that make them so unhappy. However, this book was a realistic version of our world today. I can see this happening in our lives in the world we live in today. Laura is a fantastic author and her books make you want to read more of them.

[Nancy Stevenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up without much thought, I definitely didn’t mean to be reading an erotic thriller. But I didn’t hate it!

It was readable, although the writing style with its clunky symbolism felt a bit over ambitious.

The characters were amusing, in a “laughing at” not “with” way, and I was intrigued to find out what was going to happen.

Basically an unskilled, but somehow not in enjoyable ride. Kudos.

[Kat Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this was admittedly melodramatic with maybe 1 likable character, I do think Kasischke is well aware of this and intentionally skirts the line of satire (of the banality of suburban life). Like everything else I've read by her, it's beautifully written at the line level. While not my favorite of the books I've read by her, this one was a fast, enjoyable read.

[Aurélie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Encore un bon livre de Laura Kasischke. Je l'ai moins aimé que Les revenants mais comme pour les autres il était dur de le lâcher. Laura Kasischke est vraiment pour moi une des très grandes plumes du moment. À partir d'histoires banales, ici un adultère, elle crée un univers inquiétant qui met mal à l'aise et qui en même temps intrigue.

[Sonia Caillou · Rating 1 out of 5]

Histoire poussive, quelques coquilles, une traduction (ou écriture ?) bancale... J'ai poursuivi la lecture juste pour savoir parmi la galerie de personnages présentés, QUI a fait ça.
De plus, la narratrice est difficile à suivre, peut-on être aussi naïve et égo-centrée depuis des années ? Visiblement oui.