Consequences of Attraction - John Stewart Wynne
A review of John Stewart Wynne’s stories about desire, entitlement, and the quiet erosion of consent.
184 pages · Paperback · Tree Line Books, 2025
Where Wanting Becomes Taking
Consequences of Attraction is a controlled, unsettling collection about what people persuade themselves they are entitled to once desire takes hold. Across five stories, attraction is repeatedly mistaken for permission, intensity for agreement, and proximity for consent.
The strongest pieces build quietly. Harm accumulates through small choices and unchecked assumptions rather than overt cruelty. What unsettles most is not the violence itself, but how calmly each character convinces himself that wanting something makes taking it reasonable.
In several stories, sexual misalignment becomes the clearest fault line. One person wants more than the other can give. Hesitation is read as encouragement. Imbalance is disguised as intimacy. In others, the misalignment is emotional or temporal, with characters projecting futures the other never agreed to inhabit. The underlying failure is the same. Interpretation replaces listening.
Not every story lands equally. One lingers too long in erotic detail, slightly dulling the moral edge it is aiming for. Even there, the central concern holds. The collection never asks for sympathy on false terms and avoids easy consolation.
What stays with you is how plausible everything feels. These are not monsters. They are people who fail to recognise limits, their own and others’.
A serious, disciplined collection that leaves a residue of unease rather than revelation.
Advance reading copy provided by NetGalley and Tree Line Books.