GIMBLE SPY

A separated couple attempt to fool each other via online hijinks in this romance.

Hailie James’ marriage to lawyer Davin Garret is on the rocks: “Her husband had become a stranger to her, and whenever she tried to get him to discuss how to improve their relationship, he clammed up tightly and gave her the silent treatment.” She has decided to stay with her mother. She reasons that some distance apart will do them good—hopefully, it will force Davin to realize how much he misses her. But absence is not the full extent of her plan. An IT expert, Hailie leaves behind her MacBook Pro, a “Trojan horse” she intends to use to spy on Davin. She trusts it will prove or disprove her suspicion that Davin is carrying on a secret affair. Unbeknown to Hailie, Davin’s distance has been due to mental health issues that he has been reluctant to talk about. He quickly sees through Hailie’s ruse and soon turns the trick back on his wife by browsing sites he knows will upset her. (For example, he Googles “How do I take all my wife’s money when we divorce?”) Davin hopes he can lure Hailie back through his wily scheme, but his actions are unsurprisingly misinterpreted, and these two spouses who really want to get back together may be in danger of sinking their marriage forever. Tameem’s narration switches back and forth between the two characters, who worry and fume even as readers are able to assemble the entire picture: “She had been willing to overlook his searches on dating apps because the woman he was looking for was so blatantly an accurate description of her. Although she had been angry with him at first, on reflection she had been touched by it. She wondered if he knew that he had described her in minute detail.” The storytelling is lacking in some respects: Davin and Hailie are not quite as complex as they should be, and the world they inhabit feels a bit nebulous and nonspecific. Readers will know all along where things are going, but even so, there is some fun to be found in this modern take on “The Gift of the Magi” formula.

A clever, if flawed, love story.