Does love really change us? Or rather, does it distract us from our true selves? That’s a question for Montgomery Pace, a handsome business owner who has been trying to figure it out. In this complex tale, Affect/Effect, the lives of four women and one man is explored, exploiting the dynamics of the human relationships and how love and lust affect it.

In each relationship, Monty realizes more and more how different he is with each woman and all the variety of ways he loves them. Daria, the first woman he ever loved and the only one to have ever broken his heart has always held some unexplainable power over him--to the point where, she could just reappear in his life a year after she broke his heart and change him in an instant. She stands as the “ weak in his knees” and the one he can never say no to, partly because of her demanding, obsessive, slick persona.

Ice, best friends with the woman who falls for him as soon as she rests her eyes on him, remains as his cool, rejecting his affection at first, until finally thawing under the attention. Their relationship blossoms like something Monty has never experienced. Then there’s Angel. Angel is his heart. Her hard, lawyerly façade hides the innocence and fear of a girl living a life she doesn’t understand as a person she doesn’t know. Angel is the woman with whom Monty melts from the need to protect her and respects above all, well, besides Mildred, his perfect woman--his strength. Maybe it’s just that she serves as his best friend first, but Mildred has always had Monty’s fascination and now, after years of friendship, the tension to take it farther is finally beginning to take its toll on them. Could the fact that they know everything about each other make or break their relationship? Only time and exploration will tell. In essence, their mutual truth is what keeps them the same. The heart-heavy tale is wrapped in love, loss, pain and everything and everybody in between.