Rosen­feld, a kinky, mov­ing new nov­el by Maya Kessler, starts where most love sto­ries end — at a wed­ding. Noa Simon, a depressed film­mak­er trapped in a low-lev­el TV pro­duc­tion job, meets Ted­dy Rosen­feld, a suc­cess­ful old­er tech exec­u­tive, dur­ing the recep­tion of mutu­al friends. Their attrac­tion is instant: Noa finds Ted­dy mag­net­ic. He’s self-pos­sessed, with­hold­ing, com­mand­ing, direct. He probes into why her cre­ative ambi­tions have stalled. She par­ries back, threat­en­ing to fol­low through on a job oppor­tu­ni­ty his busi­ness part­ner offered her ear­li­er in the evening at their com­pa­ny, Del­mar Bio Solu­tions. See­ing what’s com­ing between them, Ted­dy urges her to stay away from him and his busi­ness. And yet, the inevitable hap­pens mere min­utes lat­er. Flir­ta­tious ban­ter esca­lates into an erot­ic assig­na­tion in the bath­room, and we’re off.

It’s a brac­ing open­ing scene, one that deft­ly lays the ground­work for the inti­mate pow­er plays that fol­low. Des­per­ate to be clos­er to Ted­dy, Noa applies for the posi­tion, and Ted­dy hires her. Bound togeth­er by pro­fes­sion­al prox­im­i­ty, their push/​pull romance deep­ens. Ted­dy, con­stant­ly pre­oc­cu­pied with trav­el­ing and secre­tive phone calls, is hot and cold. Noa, in response, obsess­es over him, con­stant­ly cal­cu­lat­ing what behav­iors and strate­gies will win his affec­tion. They have amaz­ing sex — at the office, at his lux­u­ry apart­ment, at her small walkup. Kessler describes Noa’s job in some detail, but Del­mar isn’t cen­tral to the sto­ry. What is cen­tral is the emo­tion­al roller­coast­er Noa rides as she latch­es onto a man who can’t quit her but also won’t let her in.

Why? What’s his prob­lem? Well, he has mul­ti­ple. Mul­ti­ple ex-wives, unre­solved grief, and two sons, one with whom he has a strained rela­tion­ship he won’t dis­cuss. Noa too has dam­age. She suf­fers from seri­ous men­tal health issues, and she hasn’t spo­ken to her moth­er since she was a child; she’s still furi­ous about trau­mat­ic events sur­round­ing her par­ents’ divorce. As the nov­el pro­gress­es, each char­ac­ter becomes acquaint­ed with the other’s famil­ial prob­lems. Ted­dy dis­ap­proves of Noa’s mater­nal estrange­ment; Noa is dis­gust­ed by Teddy’s inabil­i­ty to let go of his dead mother’s belong­ings. Kessler is excel­lent at depict­ing the way lovers forcibly bur­row into each oth­er to find hid­den truths. Love, in this nov­el, is tear­ing open the beloved’s clos­et door to let their skele­tons air.

Kessler’s writ­ing is at once casu­al and pre­cise. Rosen­feld is longer than one might expect, giv­en the genre, and Noa, who nar­rates the sto­ry, com­pul­sive­ly details every twist and turn of the affair. That said, the book is nev­er bor­ing. It’s a smart, read­able nov­el about messy peo­ple falling ago­niz­ing­ly in love, and hav­ing a lot of fun in the sack along the way.