Chambers Island: A Story of Cheating and Revenge by Dakota Stone

Chambers Island: A Story of Cheating and Revenge Reviews

• 
  Robert

  It's not often when I purchase a book on KU. Also, it's rare when I put a book on my favorites shelf when there are typos (though there weren't many...overall it was rather clean). This story is that good. You can read other reviews to get more of an idea of the plot...I don't want to spoil anything. This was a quick read because it was difficult to put down.
  
  Sometimes you read a story at the correct time, maybe that's what happened. This is written with not a fantasy of what many hotwife/cuck stories are. This is grounded in real emotions. At first, it reminded me of one story (A Rough Weekend - also on my fave shelf), but then when I was halfway into it, I immediately switched to another story I liked. Name withheld so as not to give away the plot, but the author mentions it in the afterword).
  
  The one slight quibble I could give, is at times I would have liked a dual POV so we'd have more insight from the wife...or even more scenes.
  
  
• 
  BobbyH

  Brilliant
  
  Absolutely loved this book about a cheating wife and a revengeful husband. Not everything was black and white but you get to see how cheating can devastate a seemingly happy marriage. Extremely well written book, congratulations to the author, he really nailed it. A really splendid tale..
• 
  Steve Naylor

  Rating 4.o stars
  
  This book was so similar to another book I read recently called the Bridge by Richard Gerald that I thought it was a ripoff. Turns out I was right. In the afterward the author wrote that this book was based off that one I mentioned. The author liked that idea but felt there were a few things that didn't make sense in the Bridge that he wanted to change for this book. This one has a good mix of being told from the husband's and wife's POV. The wife has always been a bigger girl all her life. She recently lost 65 pounds and at the beginning of the story she is getting a book job to go from an a cup to a c cup. The husband is very supportive. He is somewhat of a bookish man. He works at an actuary in a insurance company. At the office christmas party it is the first time everyone has seen the wife with the lost weight and the new boobs. The boss boss is a billionaire young man whose father gave him the company to run recently. The boss doesn't like the husband. He thinks he is a deal killer. That is his nickname at work. He is the typical rich guy who gets anything he wants and has the confidence to do anything because that. Once he sees the wife he comes up with a plan with another asshole employee to take his wife. Yes she is hot now but he also wants to humiliate the husband. He ends up dancing with the wife a few times and gives her some drinks. He makes sure the right song is playing and then the other employee holds a mistletoe above their head. He leans in and kisses her. Not a simple kiss but a full on makeout session. The wife doesn't know what to do. She loves all the attention but knows it is wrong. The boss puts thoughts in her head. He thanks the husband for letting her dance with him and he says as long as it makes her happy. He mentions how good it is to have a guy that is happy when his wife is happy even when she is with another man. The wife can't get this out of her head. He calls her a few times and talks to her on the phone. She ends up meeting him at his office before valentines day and they make out again. She still doesn't tell her husband. His boss invites them on a weekend trip to his private island. The kids are away so they end up going. Turns out the whole trip was planned for the boss and the wife to hook up. There are a few other people there that are all there to party. The boss, the asshole friend and one other guy. Then there are 2 married women who are there to cheat on their husbands. That just leaves the husband and his wife. Notice how that is 7 people. Which only leads to 3 couples and one person left out. The husband falls asleep early and wakes up with his wife comes in drunk at 2:30 am. He finds out the next morning that the wife was topless drinking and making out with the boss the night before. He finds this out through a "fixer" that is there to prevent any problems that weekend. The wife was supposed to talk to him about all this before anything happened but she didn't. He is upset. The wife tells him that she wants to have a good time this weekend. He loves her and wants to give her anything. The boss is going out of his way to cuckold and humiliate the wife but she just doesn't see it. More importantly she doesn't want to see it. He isn't happy but thinks he can deal if things don't go too far. She then tells him she wants to sleep with the boss. He tells her no way. He is not okay with this. This is the one thing this book has over the Bridge. He tells her straight out he is not comfortable with it. That she is throwing away her marriage for this and he is hurting and is not okay. She just doesn't want to hear it and thinks that everything will be okay when they get home. It is a once in a lifetime experience for her. He knows it is more than that. She is allowing another man to humiliate and disrespect him right in his face. She makes her decision though. He then disables the communication equipment and takes the one boat the the next island stranding them there until after the holiday weekend is over. He has a few days. He writes a resignation letter, calls a divorce lawyer and sets up all his finances. He has a niche job and will not be able to work in the state so he calls a friend who offered him a job a while ago and takes the job even though it is in California and he is Ohio. The job starts in a few days. He also is going to sue the company for alienation of affection and fraternization which is against company policy. When the wife gets home she is pissed at him. Telling him how he embarrassed her in front of her friends. It takes her a while to realize what she did. Since he didn't throw any punches and just sat there she thought he was okay with it even though he said he wasn't. he told her she was having an affair but she denied it. He said you kissed him on Christmas, again on Valentines day and have been talking to him for months. This whole trip was set up for you to have sex with him but you don't think you were having an affair. He told her that she even set it up so that he didn't know anything about it until he was alone on an island and things were already set in motion. He divorced her and left for california leaving the kids with her. A couple of years later he comes home to visit the kids. He goes to in laws house and has a nice christmas. Everyone hates what the wife did and what it did to the kids. The ex-wife shows up and wants to speak to him. He is over most of the pain so he talks to her. She looks like shit. She gained all the weight back and more. He finds out that she even tried to kill herself. She tells him it was all her fault. She hates the boss and that asshole. She knew he called him an asshole for so long but it didn't sink in. They manipulated her but she fell for it. She doesn't want him or the kids to suffer anymore for what she did so she wants his permission to move to California with the kids. They go to a lot of individual counseling and even marriage counseling despite being divorced.
  
  There is only one part I didn't like. In therapy it comes out about her low self esteem and wanting to feel pretty. That is why she lost the weight and got the boob job. She felt she could experience things she never felt before. The boss got to her when she was very vulnerable and put it in her head that he would be happy for her. He likes it when she is happy. He has said happy wife happy life a lot. She also was mad at him for using all his vacation to do his hobby last year so she had some resentment for the husband over this. The part I didn't like was the therapist making it seem like his taking that vacation was worse than her affair. He know she would be upset when he used his vacation for his hobby. It affected the wife and the kids. Her decision only affected him and she had an idea that he might actually like it. So from the therapist's POV what he did was worse since he knew it would cause her harm but she didn't know what she did would cause him harm? That is bullshit. Yes what he did was crappy and he is at fault for some things in the marriage. But what she did was way worse. Especially since he told her how hurt he would be and he was not okay with it. I have heard of the affair fog but this takes that to the extreme. I get really affected by these stories. I always put myself in the MCs place and I don't know what I would have done differently. It was pretty much a no win scenario. That being said I was at the airport looking at couples and I could not picture a single one of the "real people" that I observed having something like this happen. In my mind I could picture it clearly. That is why I was so affected when reading. But when I tried to place real people into the roles in the story it kind of fell apart for me. I just couldn't imagine a wife springing a surprise cheating weekend on her husband and thinking he would be okay with it. Maybe if she had another woman there for him to sleep with turning it into a swinging weekend? But to bring her husband on a weekend where she is going to spend all her time with another man having sex and leaving the husband alone? Didn't even give him a deck of cards to play solitaire. Overall though I would say this one is better than the Bridge because it has both the husband and wife POV and there is more about reconciliation and communication in the end.
• 
  Andrew

  My last book of the year, and what a way to finish!
  
  Great story, solid emotions, sexy intrigue, conflict, miscommunication and genuine insight. I couldn’t put it down.
  
  I like good character development: this book “knocks it out of the park”. There’s a lot of couple communication (and miscommunication), and a considerable amount of internal analysis by the husband. Throughout the book, much is not how the characters see it at the time, or is subject to multiple interpretations.
  
  I use the word “delicious” to describe this book.
  
  I thought the “About this Book” did a good job of describing it. Be prepared to be surprised to the end, and take some time to think about the “rights and wrongs”. I think women and men may judge the characters differently - particularly the Patty character. And I wonder if the outcome would be different if there were just four of them on the island - Mason, Patty, Cindy and Brad - would Brad have handled it differently?
  
  I had a great time reading this out loud with my wife and discussing our different takes on events. Are things black and white; if not, is the grey light or dark?
  
  A really good author gives you lots to think about. I suspect my wife and I will talk about this one for a long time!
  
  Enjoy!
  
  Notes:
  
  1. Lots of sexual events here, but if explicit sex is important to you, this may not be the book for you.
  
  2. Not sure who the author is: Richard Brown or Dakota Stone, but I’m looking for more.
  
  3. I read the Richard Brown version if they are different.
• 
  Philippe

  Riveting.
  
  I started this story out of curiosity, because of a reader's previous review:"...no guns were used." It's set in America so that was an ironic statement. Well, I am very glad I followed my nose. It's simple, direct, gut-wrenching drama. Brilliant because it lays out the issues clearly and they are many. It's not black and white as most would think. Hey, Joe, give it a go.
• 
  Bob Himes

  Extreme Retaliation
  
  Chambers Island, by Richard Brown, is a cheating spouse story with a twist. The primary focus is not on the sex itself...there's no torrid sex scenes at all. Instead, the book focuses on the effects of the cheating on all the people involved. Still a pretty good read.
• 
  Michael Hodkinson

  Beautifully written. You get into the minds of both parties and see the events unfold.