Customer Reviews

Glory Game

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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.

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

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.

I just looked up this book to find out the author's name so I could find another one by her. I read this book a year ago, but it stays with me. I could not put it down. She not only painted a picture of Luz, but the world around her. I could see the house, hear the clink of the dishes, smell the flowers. Dailey opened up a world wholly unfamiliar to me, yet I related to Luz on a very personal level. It was brilliant. I can't wait to read another book by Dailey.