The Open Book — cover: a hotel room door ajar, a couple silhouetted in warm light
A Memoir

The Open Book

Our Marriage, the Swinger Lifestyle, and the Truth About Both
Same bed. Same night.
Two completely different stories.
Ebook & paperback · August 1, 2026 · Free in Kindle Unlimited

About the Book

After twenty-five years of marriage, two kids, and careers they loved, Mike and Julie went looking for a spark — and found the swinger lifestyle.

What followed was funnier, darker, and more revealing than either of them expected.

The Open Book is the true story of their five years inside the lifestyle: the clubs and resorts, the strangers who disappeared and the friends who stayed, the nights that brought them closer and the ones that nearly ended everything.

But here's what makes this book different from every other memoir in the category: they both tell it. Told in alternating voices, Mike and Julie recount the same events — and disagree. Again and again, they walked out of the same room carrying two completely different versions of what had just happened. This book gives you both.

Unflinching about jealousy, trauma, drinking, anger, and desire, this is neither a guide nor a warning. It's an honest account of a long marriage pushed to its limit — and what it took for two people who had every reason to walk away to keep choosing each other.

He remembers it one way. She remembers it another.
That's the whole story.

Two voices · One story
Content note: This is a frank, adults-only (18+) memoir about consensual non-monogamy. It contains explicit content and candid discussions of jealousy, alcohol use, mental health, and a past sexual assault. Names and identifying details have been changed throughout — the authors' included.

About Mike & Julie

Mike and Julie have been married for more than twenty-five years. They've raised two children, built careers they loved, and are still figuring it out — together.

They wrote this book anonymously, to protect the people in its pages. What they didn't change is the truth of what happened between the two of them — even when they remember it differently. Which, as you'll see, turns out to be the whole point.

For interviews, podcast appearances, or review copies: mikeandjulie@readtheopenbook.com