Poly Risk Reward
What A Paternity Test Taught Me About Love, Jealousy And Feminism.
About the book
In 2024, Ned and his wife received the results of a DNA paternity test that showed he is not their daughter's biological father. They'd been in a happily open marriage since 2020, and although they knew the risks, they didn't expect her to get pregnant with another man.
The book tells the story from start to finish in forensic detail, describing how their open marriage started, how polyamorous dating works in practice, why they did the test, how they responded to it, and what the future looks like, especially with the biological father.
Pre-order the book
About the author
Ned is a songwriter, storyteller, and unapologetic oversharer. After graduating from Cambridge with a law master's, he moved to London to seek his fortune as a musician, not realising that he did the law-music thing the wrong way round.
Nevertheless, with his bandmate and best friend from uni, Vedantha Kumar, he grew their indie-folk band, August and After, to millions of streams in countries across the world, with features on official Spotify playlists, BBC Radio, Kerrang!, The Independent, and Songwriting magazine.
In 2018, he met Anya, a polyamorous, Latvian-born painter, and together they moved around Europe before settling in Vienna. Here, he launched his solo music project, Ned Stranger, and explored the risks and rewards of open marriage, inadvertently living the story that formed the basis for this book.
Pre-order the book
The Podcast
The Poly Risk Reward podcast explores the same topics as the book through a mix of storytelling, research and interviews. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen on Spotify