LE ORE PIENE

An explicit erotic and literary novel about temptation, set in today's world of dating apps and online relationships. It explores secret female desires, sex between strangers, the taste of the forbidden, the surprising sweetness of an intimacy.

At the centre of this novel is the unnamed narrator, a woman in her forties, but really a grown-up teenager. She is desirable. She loves vanilla perfume, having wine on the sofa, alone, but bored. She is dissatified by her work as translator. Making a living with words is not a real job for her, but better than unemployment. When she decides to respond to a sex ad on a dating site, she immediately receives a response from P. whose profile photo shows two male hands, well groomed. She is intrigued. They agree to meet one afternoon in his house. It's clearly equipped for erotic encounters, including BDSM. But P. looks more like a student, than a master. A romantic relationship develops, then turns into sex, but P. hesitates, is in control and never allows things to go beyond a certain point. And yet, they spend hours in a life together that seems too risquée for both of them. With Le ore piene, Valentina Della Seta makes her masterly debut in Italian fiction and gives us an exceptional novel of sensuality and measure that reveals how surprises can lie behind a neighbour's door. As disturbing and painful as Raymond Radiguet's modern classic novel "Le diable au corps" (1921), LE ORE PIENE translates these eternal themes into the modern world. Valentina Della Seta was born in Rome, where she lives and works. She writes about literature, cinema and lifestyle for Il Venerdì di Repubblica, Icon e Rivista Studio.