The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir [Paperback]

When it comes to relationships and sex, I’ve made many unconventional choices. I’ve never sat around waiting for Mr. Right to come along. Most women pine for a Prince Charming, and although I have a boyfriend mantra of my own, a kind of wish list on my kitchen bulletin board that says ‘Job, House, Car, Single, Looks’, I’m not ‘making do’ with Mr. Almost Right. (Mr. Right Now, however, is a different story – in fact, there are quite a number of them in my story.) I like having a phonebook full of men who make me laugh and come, but who don’t have the time for, or interest in, a full-on relationship. It keeps life interesting.

A lot of erotic memoirs coming out at the moment are written by women in their twenties. I’m cheered that so many women are scoring – and keeping score. But I question their perspective. I think if you’re not shagging around in your twenties, there’s a problem. And I’ve discovered that if you’re still shagging around in your forties, people think there is a problem. I hope what makes my very diverse sexual experiences more interesting, more relevant to women of all stages in life, is that, having experienced a promiscuous youth, a fairly sexless marriage, and the loss of someone close, I’ve emerged, two decades after my first sexual experiences, more mature, more savvy about men, more sexual. And relieved to discover that ‘mature’ is not a euphemism for ‘old.’ I love my life like never before, and hope you’ll enjoy reading about it as much as I take pleasure in living it.

'At 29 I got married to live the life of the perfect wife with the gorgeous children. I did that for ten years, the last four of which I was completely celibate. Then I went online and everything changed...'

After a love affair with a man three thousand miles away, met online, Suzanne Portnoy - mother of two and a top executive in the entertainment industry - begins her sexual reawakening. Embarking on a sensational and prolific series of liaisons, Suzanne beds a top London chef, who cooks her a five star meal on the day her husband moves out. An affair with a famous men's magazine editor quickly ensues, followed by a top cameraman who takes pictures of Suzanne naked. But this is just the beginning. Insatiable, Suzanne dives into the swinging scene and works her way through an entire spectrum of sexual experience, including exhibitionism, group sex, fetish clubs, and a predilection for picking up men in her lunch hour.

Suzanne's journey of self-discovery is anything but typical; her attitude towards sex and relationships is even more unusual. The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker is a story that is shocking and heart-warming in equal measure. Freed from the restraints of marriage and monogamy, Suzanne takes pleasure without commitment and tells her story without a trace of shame. She's not looking for Prince Charming anymore, but fun. And she finds it.

'Taking the vogue for erotic memoirs to the extreme ... as mind boggling as it is shocking' The Mirror

'Intelligently written [and] brutally honest' Metro

'Eye-poppingly unambiguous prose' Esquire

'Book of the Month' Scarlet