Excerpt from Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Seduction Theory

Ethan didn't need to convince himself his wife was beautiful; she always had been, was becoming more so as they aged. Tonight she had fallen asleep with the lights on. She wore gray, university-branded sweatpants and a silk shirt half open to an expensive bralette. Strewn across Ethan's side of the bed were Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, several Cambridge Companions, and a plate smeared with ketchup. He removed the plate and stacked the books on the nightstand. Stripping down to his boxer briefs, he flipped the light switch and arranged his body against hers on the mattress. "Tell me something," he said.

He felt his wife emerge from shallow sleep. He felt her struggle to produce a compelling answer. The struggle meant something to him.

"Reviewer two fucked me over," she said.

Ethan considered himself comfortable with the ways Simone was a real professor, and he was not. She had a Yale PhD, a scholarly book with Oxford, a daunting list of publications — though her students worshipped her for a popular memoir she'd written about her mom, and for her hair.

What his wife wanted was to speculate about reviewer two's identity. The peer who had fucked Simone's article was almost certainly a close friend from her Yale cohort. Reviewer two might have been Marshall, who'd taken twelve years to write a dissertation and landed at NYU Singapore, or Mackenzie, a Wiccan who once hissed at Simone mid-seminar, "Bite your tongue!"

Ethan and Simone had fallen in love at Vassar. After graduation he moved with her to Connecticut, where he worked at a coffee shop and wrote Muse, the novel that qualified him for the spousal hire at Edwards. During those years in New Haven he'd contracted an outsider's inferiority complex while cultivating a sexy, edgy indifference to academia. They were married in the living room of their Wooster Square apartment amid pizza boxes. "Elvis Presley's Blues" by Gillian Welch. Metal bars on the window. Simone's vintage minidress evoked spontaneity, Las Vegas. They vowed never to lose interest in each other. Guests weren't sure if the wedding was ironic or sincere, and their gifts reflected their uncertainty. There was a cake pan shaped like Hogwarts and a set of blue martini glasses.

They decided never to have children. "I want to spend the rest of my life reading books and undressing you," Simone said, eyes welling with wine-warmed tears. What had Ethan said? What he always said to her. Yes.

Tonight he didn't care about reviewer two. From his wife he craved a compliment, or some indication he was known beyond the parts of himself he advertised. For instance, she might roll over and ask, "When did you get so lonely?"

Alternatively, he would accept a piece of personal lore she'd waited until now to tell him, intuiting he would need to be reeled in from the waters of infidelity. Was she voted homecoming queen at Chappaqua High School? Did she ever stash an infant turtle in her closet until it died? Say something funny, he thought. Make a little joke!

Simone had gone back to sleep.





In the morning, the happy couple jogged into the path of their secretary. Abigail held a paper sack of groceries beneath one arm and wore linen pants cut into shorts. She had knees like the rumpled faces of newborns. Where was Byron, her five-year-old son? Maybe waiting in the car, if that was legal, or — knowing Abigail — even if it wasn't.

Did Ethan still categorize the cigarette he'd smoked with Abigail as infidelity? No. The cigarette had assumed the abstract, blameless quality of images that flashed through his mind during intercourse: Shin guards on a volleyball player. Tattooed cashier at the hardware store. He was unaware of any recklessness in his thoughts or behavior. He was aware of being a novelist who hadn't sold a book since he was twenty-six, and of a morning heat too aggressive for June, and of Simone's sweat mixing with traces of her cologne.

Excerpted from Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian. Copyright © 2025 by Emily Adrian. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.