A relationship specialist ran out of advice.

For years, Donna sat across from couples who weren't fighting. They weren't unhappy. They'd just gone quiet. Dinner, the dishes, two phones and the television. Nineteen years of it, and the hundreds of couples she saw over that time all looked the same way.

She gave them the usual advice. Book a date night. Leave the phones in the kitchen. Ask each other better questions. They'd nod, go home, and come back three weeks later and say it was nice.

Then her own kitchen went quiet too. Her husband, Ray, used to do the sudoku in bed. In pen. When he got stuck, he'd hold it up and ask what she thought, which was never a question. It was an accusation that the puzzle was wrong. One spring she noticed he'd stopped. So had the cards, and the Sunday word search. They were both in bed at the same time, on their phones, thirty-three years married.

What changed it wasn't a talk. It was a game. One night they played for points, and her husband tried to beat her at something for the first time in years. They were still at the table an hour later, arguing about the score.

That's the whole idea behind Amberton. Every book has a pen, a winner and nothing to set up.