Tormented

by Carolyn Weston

A searing novel of erotic obsession that was a scandalous sensation when it was released in 1956... becoming a rarity that has been desperately pursued by collectors for the last sixty years.
This is the story of five people...of Elizabeth Carnes, driven by a desperate, aching passion to a mysterious lover who is the only one who can give her the physical release her devoted husband can't provide....of George Carnes, spurned by his wife and forced to seek solace in the womanly warmth of his secretary, the deceptively placid Stella Sander, who hides a voracious sexual appetite...of Jon Steen, the complex, dangerous, bisexual artist who unlocks Elizabeth's lust... and of Tracy Steen, Jon's controlling wife, whose neurotic, all-consuming need for love and devotion will lead to a shattering end for them all.

This is the first, published book by Carolyn Weston, the author of the crime novels that became the hit TV series THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 28, 2020

About the author

Carolyn Weston grew up in Hollywood during the Depression. She played hooky from school in movie theaters and libraries, honing the craft that would make her books so remarkable. During World War II, she worked in an aircraft plant and then did odd jobs around the country before writing Poor Poor Ophelia, the first Al Krug / Casey Kellog police procedural… which became the hit TV series "The Streets of San Francisco". Two more books in the series, every bit as good as Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct and just as memorable, followed.

Reviews

[Georgette Kaplan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. An old-school melodrama with so much loving that it'd be softcore if all the prose wasn't so purple. Frigid Elizabeth Carnes is unhappy in her marriage to George and so steps out on him with Jim, a hippie-drippie artise who constantly navel-gazes like he's trying out for Jonathan Livingston Seagull (he's even bicurious!). He's also married to Tracy, who is pretty much a stalker but she has money, so Jim has married her and lives off her dime while making a big deal about how free he is and verbally abusing her whenever she crawls by to try and get some affection from him. (Whatta guy![/sarcasm])

George is also cheating on his wife with his secretary, Stella (ah, the Fifties), but despite the fact that she's in love with him and as openly affectionate as he could ask for, he keeps thinking of her as a dumb, shallow cow for not being as 'deep' as the wife who can't stand him. (Whatta guy![/sarcasm])

So our cast of characters is two cheaters, a stalker, a golddigging hippie, and one secretary who could absolutely do better, only she's trapped in this book.