With the Kisses of His Mouth

Monique Roffey is an award winning Trinidadian-born British writer. She has written four novels and a memoir. Three of her novels are set in the Caribbean and form a loose trilogy which engages with political and environmental issues in the region. The most recent of these Caribbean novels is House of Ashes, published in July 2014. Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Sans Amen, it tells the story of three characters, a gunman, a hostage and a boy soldier caught up in a botched coup d'état. Archipelago, published in 2012, is both an epic sea voyage and an examination of climate change from the point of view of a man from the southern Caribbean. It won the OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2013. The judges commended it for its 'exploration of the greater Caribbean space in which is embedded a real-life story of trauma and loss and ultimately redemption that is both contemporary and compelling'. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, a story that maps the creolisation of a colonial couple during the early Independence years in Trinidad, received widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2010 and the Encore prize 2011. Her erotic memoir, With the Kisses of his Mouth was published in 2011 to much praise and controversy and was reviewed in the Guardian as 'a subversive work that transcends the author's personal story: it stands alone in the chasm that has opened between feminist literature and the belles du jour brigade'. Roffey has a PhD in Creative Writing and teaches regularly for The Arvon Foundation and the Writer's Lab in Skyros. She is a member of the action group Carib-Lit and teaches and runs workshops regularly in Trinidad too. She divides her time equally between London and Port of Spain. Find out more at http://www.moniqueroffey.co.uk

'An intelligent, dark, thorny but redemptive book about sex. Men, read it at your peril' Robert Rowland Smith, author of Breakfast with Socrates At last a book about female sexuality that isn't coy or vainglorious. With the Kisses of his Mouth is a fresh look at love, lust and longing in the 21st century. And it's funny too' Daisy Goodwin, author of My Last Duchess 'Honest, self-exposing... a candid exploration of the vulnerability of middle-age, as well as a fairly brutal examination of the human heart and its endless capacity to be broken... I want to stick up for this book. It is astoundingly brave. It is funny. It speeds along. It has magic at its heart -- that indefinable sliver of human warmth and hope that all the best, most searching memoirs seem to have. Moreover, Roffey's somehow irrepressible willingness to share begins to seem generous, infectious even. As she finally manages to let go of her ex and view their intense, yet largely platonic, love affair as something to celebrate rather than regret, I found myself knocked off course in a rather moving and indescribable way... Perhaps most tellingly, Roffey admits that, despite all the workshops and zestful attempts at sexual self-improvement, she actually likes her "flawed and crooked self" and in some ways makes a writerly choice to remain "blind" because "I wanted to turn the darkness in me into prose". Well, good. Because isn't that exactly what we need writers -- the brightest, most adventurous and self-scrutinising ones, like Parks and Roffey -- to do: to take that same darkness and turn it into something so blazingly alive that it can shine a little light on the rest of us?' Julie Myerson, Observer 'From Craigslist to tantra classes, this is a heartbreaking and, at times, explicit memoir of rediscovery' Elle 'Moments of startling candour throughout... Roffey's writing soars when she's describing the intense grief she experienced at the end of the great love affair that prompted her journey... Roffey is both wise and moving when examining her desire for romance; her propensity for creation myths in relationships; and how her ex "had a talent for love"... Roffey asks serious questions about what place sex has in modern relationships, and is blessed with admirable honesty' Independent on Sunday Top 50 Summer Reads -- Independent 'WITH THE KISSES OF HIS MOUTH is an important book. How many books explore erotic love fully, fearlessly and intelligently? None that I've read - until now. Monique Roffey's brave and poignant quest for the nature of love - erotic and romantic - will give you glimpses of your most intimate self. Buy it, read it, and if it doesn't turn you inside out, you may consider yourself dead' Kapka Kassabova, author of STREET WITHOUT A NAME 'Roffey is good at writing about raw emotions and is engaging as she embarks on her pleasure quest... candid humour' Metro 'A vivid, entertaining and unexpectedly moving read... rueful and emotional' Sunday Times 'Roffey is too good a writer to allow her sexual adventures to degenerate into literary soft porn. She is always analysing her emotions, exploring the essence of her sexuality, describing her encounters with a careful balance between frankness and crass explicitness and offering a view into a contemporary world of female sexuality which is often warm, liberating and very funny... It is a book that everyone, both male and female, who is concerned about their emotional-sexual life will find illuminating and informative' Sydney Morning Herald, Pick of the Week 'A brave and audacious exploration of female sexuality... The writing is spirited, candid, sometimes humorous, definitely full-on and, as a woman's response to sexuality, refreshing. She asks questions about love, sex and relationships that we have all asked -- but rarely gone to such lengths to find answers to. Her observations on soulmates, monogamy and father-daughter relationships are thought-provoking... eventually she reaches an understanding, a celebration, an uplifting reclamation of both her sexuality and her self' Carol Drinkwater, Mslexia 'A memoir which has entertained, enthralled and enlightened me as Monique Roffey reveals the pain love can cause but also the value sex can have... Roffey escorts us with her on a remarkable quest to discover what the world has to offer a 40-something woman exploring her sexuality... Roffey is frank and amusing throughout... With the Kisses of His Mouth provides a fascinating perspective on attitudes to sex in the twenty-first century and questions what is socially acceptable for an open-minded person to be getting up to. Indeed, the reader may come to think that we all need our own sexual odyssey... of some sort' Erotic Review 'Explicit and intrepid ... Roffey heads off into new territory, exploring her sexuality and ultimately her humanity ... a thrill ... [a] blast of a read' Independent