Review: A Game of Chance

Review: A Game of Chance, by Linda Howard

✩✩

Undercover agent Chance Mackenzie knew that the best way to capture an elusive terrorist was to use the man's daughter as bait, so he seduced Sunny Miller and set out to discover her father's whereabouts. Sunny's own innocence was questionable, and gaining her trust was nearly impossible. And even with all his experience and training, Chance found it difficult to overlook her beauty. However, Chance soon realized that Sunny wasn't running from him - she was running for her life, and she needed Chance's protection. But keeping Sunny safe would involve telling her the truth . . .

Genre: romantic suspense

Publication date: October 2015 (for the Kindle version; the original print is from 2000)

Mature content: yes

Review:  Game of Chance is one of Linda Howard's earlier books, and it shows. Both the story and the characters lack depth, and the plot is very unrealistic in places. Also, A Game of Chance is apparently part of a series (something Amazon failed to inform me), which means that I was totally lost when all the Mackenzie family members started popping in.

Even with the disclaimers above, the story started out more or less ok, but stopped making sense shortly after. The best way to describe it? Too much too fast. How can two people talk about falling in love less than 24 hours after meeting for the first time when most of that time was actually spent sleeping? Well, Chance is faking it anyway, at least at first, but Sunny isn't, and she buys it too. She's silly and does not behave like any self deserving woman would in those circumstances, especially considering her past. And Chance, well, I never figured out what he really did in life or who he worked for, so that part didn't make sense either. Then Sunny gets pregnant because, of course, in the few days they spend together they manage to have unprotected sex not once, but twice, even though Sunny clearly says she's not on birth control and Chance has condoms with him. Then she finds everything is a lie. But he says he's sorry and it will never happen again. And they live happily ever after.

The upside? It's not a very long book...

It's really painful for me to rate one of Linda Howard's books with no more than two stars because she's still one of my favorite authors, but A Game of Chance just doesn't qualify.

Happy Readings, 

the book worm, book blog

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