The Glory Game [Hardcover]

Janet Dailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1985

JANET DAILEY'S SPARKLING NOVEL OF SECOND CHANCES AND DARING PASSIONS SWEEPS ACROSS A BREATHTAKING CANVAS!

Luz Kincaid Thomas has everything -- wealth, two lovely teenagers, beauty, and love -- until her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Now, Luz discovers her own strength as she faces her fear, loneliness, and the rebellion of her son and daughter. But will she dare to love again? Magnetically drawn to Raul Buchanan, a champion Argentine polo player, Luz will test the depths of her passions as she is swept into a marvelous world of international glamour. But she never dreamed she would find herself competing with her own her daughter for this irresistibly sexy younger man. Is winning the game of love worth the price?

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Chicago Sun-Times Glamorous, fast-moving....[Raul is] the quintessential Latin lover.

Los Angeles Herald Examiner The Dailey magic is evident.... --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

About the Author

Janet Dailey is the author of scores of popular and uniquely American novels, including such bestsellers as Scrooge Wore Spurs, A Capital Holiday, The Glory Game, The Pride of Hannah Wade, and the phenomenal Calder saga, including the newest title in the series, Shifting Calder Wind. Her romantic fiction has also been featured in a story anthology, The Only Thing Better Than Chocolate. Since her first novel was published in 1975, Janet Dailey has become the bestselling female author in America, with more than 300,000,000 copies of her books in print. Her books have been published in seventeen languages and are sold in ninety countries. Janet Dailey's careful research and her intimate knowledge of America have made her one of the best-loved authors in the country and around the world. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 395 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671555448
• ISBN-13: 978-0671555443
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,765,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Janet Dailey's best, September 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Glory Game (Paperback)

This book tells about Luz Kincaid Thomas's life after her lawyer husband, Drew, leaves her for a younger woman. She eventually finds a new love, Rauol Buchanan, a polo player.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book. I felt that there was not a single believable character or situation in it. Luz is a proud woman, but she has almost too many strikes against her. Her husband, Drew, seems initially devoted to her, so it's difficult to understand why he leaves her for another woman, even though the other woman is a lawyer and Luz is not. The "other woman", Claudia, is a cardboard character; it's hard to see what the attraction is, beyond her and Drew's shared profession. Luz's son, Rob, is not an unsympathetic character; but he is also mixed up in promiscuity and drugs, which lead to scandal and tragedy for the family. And Luz's daughter, Trisha, is the worst character in the bunch: she is so rude and disloyal to her mother --even openly preferring Claudia to Luz-- that I was ready to slap her!

Also, it bothered me that the children addressed their mother by her first name, "Luz". I may be old-fashioned, but I felt this seemed disrepectful. But, on second-thought, maybe it's a family custom as Luz addresses her own mother as "Audra".

Janet Dailey is a delightful writer. Her "Harlequin Presents" romances were charmingly and beautifully written; and most of her longer books were good, also. (Particularly "Silver Wings, Santiago Blue".) But I guess even a good writer can come up with a clinker every now and then. Read any one of Janet Dailey's other books, and you'll see that she can be an entertaining author.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Glory Game (Mass Market Paperback)

Could not have cared less for any of the characters. They were by no means likable. Don't waste any time reading this bore.

3.0 out of 5 stars Three-star enjoyment + two-star book=2.5 stars, March 29, 2007

By 

Katherine Laura Mayfield "A Bookie" (Northwest Florida, the United States of America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glory Game (Mass Market Paperback)

Though I have never read any of Danielle Steele's pop novels, I imagine them being somewhat along the lines of this one--wealthy family, international settings, sudsy and soapy, etc. Though I did find myself skimming over the polo descriptions (even though they added authenticity to the setting), the story (if not all the characters) were interesting enough to keep me reading to the end, and the journey (number of pages) was quite long because I am not willing to invest precious time into a book and then feel as if I have wasted it. I was entertained and learned a little bit about polo (which I still do not care about, though it did serve as an interesting backdrop) and Argentina (and I love geography).

I picked up this book not only because the story sounded interesting, but because Janet Dailey wrote it, and she used to write for Harlequin, who I am trying to write for, and I wanted to see how a Harlequin author wrote outside the Harlequin company and I must say, this was better than most of the Harlequin (referring to the Steeple Hill and Harlequin Presents line) novellas I've read.

However, the only really likeable character was Luz (who I kept wanting to call Liz), even though the part about her wanting Claudia to have an abortion bothered me, but then her husband of twenty-one years had just told her he was walking out on her and this woman, Claudia, was the reason. Anyway, I absolutely hated the daughter, Trisha, almost from the beginning.

She was such a slut, and an all around not very nice person. She told her mother she hadn't done anything with her life and that was why her father left her, etc., defending the philandering party. Any normal girl who loved her mother (even if she did favor the son) would have hated Claudia (whose character we were never really given enough insight into), at least at first. And she came across as so pathetic, telling Raul (the man she is in lust with, her mother in love with) that she is not a virgin (practically hissing the words) so he will sleep with her, and when he rejects her advances, she tries a different tactic, telling him she wishes he was her first. I do not respect any female who makes a fool of herself just to get into some man's pants. I think Raul's constantly rejecting her was what endeared me to him. He had standards.

As for Drew, the husband, he still seemed to love Luz (whose likeness I imagined to be that of Lana Turner), but I guess just not enough to give up his own happiness with the woman he had fallen in love with. He and Luz didn't share a love for law, but he and Claudia did, and that seemed to be the main reason for the split. I really don't think a common interest, even a passion, is worth busting up your marriage for, but anyway, I believe it was for the best because she found herself and a wonderful new love, who had a lot of emotion (if not a lot to say), whose personality was pretty much wrapped up in polo (if it was football, I would have said to give him the boot). I felt his surface of his character were merely scratched whereas the reader got to know Luz intimately.

And as for him buying Claudia chocolates (and Valentine ones at that!) in the airport gift shop, how dumb did he think his wife was? I guess as dumb as his daughter did.

As for Rob, the son, I liked him at the beginning, ever loyal to his mother, but constant drug use changed him.

Though the family (at least the extended family) was close, I still felt that Rob and Trisha referring to their mother and father by their first names kept them from being closer, but then, Luz called her mother by her first name. I suppose the kids picked up on it when they went to visit Grammy, so what could she say? Perhaps this is something that only goes on with the very rich.

Even though I don't blame Luz, I couldn't help thinking Drew still had one-up on Luz because he was starting a new family and the only child Luz had left was the unimpressive Trisha. I still couldn't help but hope Claudia would leave Drew for a younger man and Drew would try to go back to Luz and she would tell him she was already in love with someone else. I mean, he didn't get hurt at all in this.

Also, I do feel that Trisha acted out of character when she found out about Luz and Raul. I mean, she was crazy about him, and even if had realized by then that it was lust instead of love, or the thrill of the chase, she had still been beated out by her mother (which I thought was great, by the way, considering how little she thought of her). I mean, she just sort of accepts it, after having invested all this time in chasing him. Acceptance doesn't come first, but denial, then anger, then acceptance.

All in all, it was a fun, whirlwind trip through Europe, with a relaxing time in Argentina after, but I was glad when Luz finally returned home, her real home in Virginia, at least, until Raul asks to marry her, and then their home will be wherever it will be as long as they're together.