Can trauma and love learn to live alongside each other, or will pain always triumph over pleasure? And how do you approach dating in the 21st century when the very thought of sex both repulses and terrifies you? These are just some of the uncomfortable, brave and brutally honest questions posed by Charlotte Paradise’s memorable debut novel, Overspill.
In another author’s hands, the flirty meet-cute between virgin Sara and reformed playboy Miles would signal the start of a breezy romcom straight out of the classic ‘opposites attract’ playbook. But Paradise has an altogether darker and more realistic destination in mind. Each chapter digs a little deeper into Sara’s troubled psyche, gradually uncovering the shocking abuse that robbed her of her childhood and laid waste to most of her adult desires.
As Sara and Mike’s fledgling relationship begins to struggle under the combined weight of her vaginismus and his inability to fully understand the condition, what emerges is an emotional and grownup exploration of what it takes to commit to another person when your own flesh feels like a foreign and hostile land. Equal parts tender and unflinching, Overspill overcomestraditional boundaries toauthentically depict love in the time of C-PTSD.
