This is a fun read but it feels ultimately a bit inconsequential to me: essentially a 'betrayal of innocence' tale, it follows two young newly-weds in 1957 - both virgins on their wedding night - and how they get sucked into the glamorous world of excessive drink, sex and hedonism on their two-week honeymoon. There are no surprises and the dynamics of the seduced and the seducers have been done before, arguably with more impact.

Most of the book is focalised through Henry, the young husband, and his masculine desire for sex with as many women as possible. The sex scenes are fairly explicit but not porn-y. I was actually more interested in his wife Effie but we don't really get the opportunity to experience things through her eyes which is a shame: the dual standard that allows masculine sexuality to flourish while female sexuality is curtailed means that Effie has a higher hurdle to jump to overcome her upbringing and social moral standards - how she does this is left unexplored.

The final chapter jumps from the honeymoon experiences to summarise how they impact the marriage over its entire life, something that doesn't quite work: it feels flimsy and an add-on.

So I'd file this as a superior beach read - the writing is smooth and fluent, and it's an entertaining page-turner of a novel.

In the synopsis, this novel is described as a "mesmerizing debut novel by Chip Cheek." The unputdownable nature of its contents and the speed with which I tore through the pages can certainly attest to that!

It is 1957 and two newlyweds make their temporary home in New Jersey, for the duration of their honeymoon. The streets are deserted, the homes are abandoned, and this popular setting for summer escape lies in a silent and gloomy out-of-season solitude. Thrown in such close proximity, and without the reprieve of other individuals, Henry and Effie decide to cut their trip short. But on the cusp of disembarking, they find their first time together saved with the unlikely arrival of a trio of wealthy socialites. They soon discover that these saviours will also deliver them so much more.

In amongst the sea of alcohol-infused debauchery this novel becomes unmoored upon, is an insight to 1950s American culture. The characters act either according to or purposefully against the accepted norms and the reader is introduced to the tricky social politics that governed this time. This isolated setting becomes the backdrop to this unburdening of these expectations and what resides underneath is a sexual and sensual awakening, a burgeoning awareness of the self, and many an erotic and gin-soaked scene that makes this novel both a riveting read as well as an unexpectedly profound one.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I couldn’t seem to connect with it.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Orion Publishing for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

Cape May is a through the looking glass version of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. As in that novel, a couple go to the seaside for their honeymoon. In this story Effie and Henry do all the stuff that didn't happen in the McEwan story, and then some.
The newlyweds borrow a cottage from a relative in a resort where Effie used to spend her summers. It is out of season, and most of the town is closed. They spend the first week getting to know each other sexually. Just as they are thinking of going home early, they meet an old acquaintance of Effie's. Clara is constantly partying, to make up for her boring marriage. She is accompanied by louche Max, and his pretty sister Alma.
She takes them in, and inducts them into a life of cocktails, trips out on their yacht and a finer kind of life. Effie and Henry are drawn in, little by little. As the town is mostly unoccupied, the new group starts entering empty houses and having different types of fun.
Cape May is unstinting in its' descriptions of the shenanigans they get up to. Chip Cheek has written an entertaining story of Effie and Henry’s honeymoon, which will change their lives forever. Four stars.

Thank you for providing this free ARC. The setting, both time and place kept me reading the book and it was well written, the deserted beach and town were very vivid, & i felt as if I were experiencing the hot days and storms . However the story itself was predictable. Part of my problem might have been that the description of the book gave so much away that there was very little that came as a surprise or generated any real sense of tension. - this is obviously something that could be avoided on the cover copy of the book itself- . Then after a very leisurely description of a couple of weeks the last few pages rushed through many years at a gallop. I would look out for the author again but would avoid reading the cover copy first!

Cape May is a retro-drenched novel about a newlywed couple on their honeymoon in 1957. Henry and Effie arrive in Cape May in New Jersey from Georgia, but it's the off-season and the town is almost deserted. Just when they're ready to give up on it, there is life in one of the other houses on the street, and they are drawn into the world of Clara, a socialite, her lover Max, and his sister Alma. They all drink, dance, sail, sneak into abandoned houses, and find out new things about love and lust that may change their lives.

The novel is on one hand an exciting and nostalgic look at what a fresh-faced Southern couple might discover about themselves and married life, and on the other hand a kind of fleeting and superficial read with a hurried ending. By the end, it feels quite unfulfilled, but this does admittedly match an overarching sense within the novel itself. The narrative is predictable, but the novel has a good sense of faded glamour - it feels a bit like it could be a film with a similar aesthetic to Mad Men, if a little earlier.

Reading this novel is a bit like being pulled into a night at an unexpectedly riotous retro party, and then realising afterwards that none of it was quite what you wanted.