Adele Parks, Game Over

Game Over

Adele Parks

Downtown, Mar 2004, $13.00, 368 pp.

ISBN: 0743457617

Cas Perry knows herself quite well even to the point of understanding her life's pivotal moment that shaped her beliefs. When she was seven, her father deserted her and her mother. Since that time, Cas' values are simply that relationships are based on dumping before being dumped and that nothing lasts so cynically calculate what you want so that you cannot be damaged. Understanding that men leave, she lives her life to insure that no one ever walks out on her before she can walk out on them.

When the beautiful tree surgeon Darren enters her life, Cas knows her philosophy is being challenged yet she cannot help herself as she wants him in something more permanent than her usual evanescent relationships. Will Cas risk her carefully balanced mental state by taking a chance on Darren for if he deserts her she is not sure she could emotionally recover as she never truly rebounded from when her dad left her?

GAME OVER is an interesting chic lit tale because the heroine is not seeking Mr. Right, but instead is a sort of female rake that is successful in business yet has flaws that she is well aware of and does not care to change until she meets Darren. Readers will see her as vulnerable yet cold similar to how delightful Darren perceives her as chilly callous Cas yet desires her. The game show Cas invents, his family, and a cast of weirdoes add humor to a tale that will have sub-genre fans park for a few hours of a zany with serious undertones fun.

Harriet Klausner