dark, twisted, multi-layered, erotic

Oh, er, Matron. Dark, twisted,multi-layered, erotic eh? What am I getting myself into? Sounds interesting.
Picked up at Meet.

For the record here is the synopsis from Amazon:-
'Anna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going - just that she'll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life - as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother. She has no premonition that she will become a statistic in a missing person file. Left at home is Anna's beloved six-year-old daughter Lily, her gay friend Paul, who is surrogate father to Lily, and her eccentric best friend Estella. When Anna doesn't return, they make uneasy excuses until, as time passes, the mind-numbing possibility that Anna might not be coming back becomes terrifyingly real. And while those closest to her battle with their imaginations, Anna is on a dark journey - in one scenario Anna is on a ravishing, sexual adventure, on the other, much darker voyage, she is the victim of a stranger's dangerous sexual fantasy. In a masterpiece of emotionally intelligent and nerve-wracking suspense, Sarah Dunant takes us to the very edge. '

This book has a complicated narrative structure in which the reader is presented with two possible story lines to explain Anna's absence. The third thread in the book deals with the people at home and how they are coping with Anna's disappearance. One of Anna's scenarios I found quite unconvincing and that rather threw the book off balance for me. The narrative cracks on at a good pace and it's an easy read. The characters are alright but I did not really become totally engrossed in any of them, although Anna's unusual family arrangements at home were engaging. Somehow the sexual tension elements of this book left me cold - I didn't find it very erotic at all to be honest. I don't think this book will stay in my memory for very long, but I do think Dunant is to be applauded for the structure she has created.
This has to be a candidate to return for Meetup in January as it fits the erotica theme well, I don't really like returning books to Meet but it is a few months since it was last there and it does fit the theme so well so I'll make an exception!

Releasing at the January Meet

not picked up at the meet.

left on the shelf...