The Magus and The Fool

Book excerpt: Carry Iverson needs a change of pace from his predictable life in Ohio. He takes a position with a social justice firm in Austin and rents a cottage on Lake Travis. At a bewildering dinner with his cousin, Donovan, his wife, Fallon, and an alluring transgender man, Levi, Carry discovers his neighbor is a wealthy and mysterious man who has everyone talking. Carry’s curiosity turns into attraction after meeting the flirtatious Jacobi at one of his parties. But Jacobi has a secret desire of his own: he is in love with Donovan. Now Carry finds himself caught in the middle of a reckless love triangle with Fallon, who is hellbent on destroying Jacobi to keep her wayward husband from straying. Passion and jealousy reach a fever pitch when the carefully designed lives of Carry, Donovan, Fallon, and Levi unravel. This provocative and explosive story is about what happens at the intersection of obsession and tragedy and explores the frailty of hope and agony over what could have been but never was, two forces that pull us into lives that we were never meant to live.