A hilariously acerbic sliding doors novel about a chance meeting between two young parents, both happily married (just not to each other) that sparks a will-they-won’t-they romance—perfect for fans of Big Swiss and Acts of Service.

When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist.

As reality splits, the everyday details of Cora’s life—her depressing marketing job, her daughter’s new fascination with the afterlife, her husband’s obsession with podcasts about the history of rope—gain fresh perspective. The intersecting and diverging timelines blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy, questioning what might have been and what truly matters.

The Ten Year Affair is a witty, emotionally-charged exploration of marriage, family life, and the roads not taken, that ultimately do we really want our fantasies to come true?

This is one of those books that sounds tailor-made for me on paper: dry humor, messy marital tension, a slow-burn attraction that shouldn’t happen but absolutely does. And to be fair, it delivers some of that. But as much as I enjoyed parts of the story, I never fully clicked with it the way I hoped I would.

The setup is great. Cora and Sam meet at a baby group and eventually (and rather suddenly) hit that “oh no, this is going to be a problem” wall. They’re both married, both parents, both trying to wrangle the chaos of early family life, and neither sees themselves as the type to cheat. Yet the attraction is impossible to ignore. It felt believable and familiar in the sense that real life rarely gives you tidy lines. Sometimes chemistry just shows up and makes everything inconvenient. Especially when life at home has started to feel very by the book.

Where the book gets ambitious is in its structure. I don’t mind a good sliding-doors style story, but this execution felt a little chaotic. Toward the beginning of the book the story alternates between a timeline where Cora and Sam pursue the affair, and one where they shut it down. The switches between timelines often happen quickly, and sometimes without enough grounding to make it clear which version of reality we’re in. I caught myself backtracking more than once to get my bearings.

That said, I did like the way the two timelines begin to blur the deeper we go. It was interesting to explore the emotional fallout of both choices at once, especially when the outcomes aren’t as clean as you expect. As even the “cleaner” timeline careens toward an eventual affair, the author show how the things we think we want often lose their sparkle when we actually reach for them.

I also appreciated the book’s willingness to sit in the uncomfortable parts of early parenthood and marriage. Somers doesn’t glamorize the exhaustion or the loneliness that can creep into domestic life when you’re doing everything “right” on the outside. This reflection gives the story a relatable anchor.

My biggest struggle, though, was with Sam and Cora themselves. They’re fine. That’s really the best word for them. They feel realistic as people navigating parenthood and boredom and longing, but they didn’t have the layers I wanted. When you’re toggling between two realities with the same characters, you hope each version reveals something deeper or unexpected. Instead, Sam and Cora felt a little one-note across both timelines. I wanted more nuance. And because the book leans so heavily on their dynamic, the lack of depth dulled some of the tension for me. I liked their dry banter and the resigned, slightly weary humor Somers weaves into their conversations, but after a while, I stopped feeling invested in whether they did or didn’t end up together.

The side characters (Cora’s husband and daughter and Sam’s wife) have their own little quirks that made them more than just side characters. In fact, I found them more interesting than Sam and Cora. Their quirks kept the book grounded, and they’re part of what kept me turning pages even when the lead characters weren’t doing it for me.

If you like domestic fiction with dry wit, parallel-timeline experiments, and messy grown-up choices, this one is worth checking out. Just go in knowing that the structure might grab you more than the characters do. For me, it was fine. I liked it, and I admired the ambition, but I stayed at a distance from the characters when I wanted to feel closer.

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