Customer Reviews

Playing the Game

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"As you know, Annette Remmington, you are the owner of Annette Remmington Gallery, and your husband, Marius Remmington, is a meanie and embodies every stereotype of a villain, so obviously you deserve complete and utter happiness... even at the expense of decent writing and a non-predictable plot." No, not really, but this is a sample of how this author uses dialogue as the primary vehicle for backstory.
It was the first book I had read by this author, so perhaps her others are much different, but I was surprised at the lazy writing in Playing the Game. Not only was the dialogue stuffed with backstory (how many sisters sit around reminding each other of the details of their tragic childhoods?) but it was also clunky and full of "Oh my God!"s and about 3,000 too many exclamation points, even by the supposedly manly protagonist who comes swooping in to save poor Annette from... well, a whole bunch of unbelievable coincidences.
That brings us to plot... which apparently was arrived at by the author asking herself, "How can I make the antagonist more antagonistic, and the protagonist more protagonistic? Oh, I know - I'll make Annette more tragic by giving her a rotten childhood, and I'll make my readers hate Marius more by... let's see... oh, yes, he can cheat on his wife and be a criminal! Yes! How creative!" Throw in a few random characters (uh, whatever happened to the cousin Allison? Is she exiled to France? Are we in the 1500s again? And the brother Anthony? His point was what?) and flashbacks to -- what else -- childhood abuse, basic details about the Impressionists masquerading as in-depth studies, and (wait for it)... obstacles to love-at-first-sight with the disarmingly charming and unable-to-commit-to-a-woman-until-he-meets-Annette Jack!
Again, I have not read other books by this author, but, having noted that she is a bestselling author, my guess is that she is talented and readable, but has fallen into the trap of quick production. The concept itself is fine -- an arts mystery darkened by murder and deepened by a love affair -- but the characters are too stock, the dialogue too unbelievable, and the plot too full of lazy coincidences to make this anything but a book that deserves to be skipped.

Pretty good book. It starts out great guns and then drags for about 200 pages and hurries through the ending. The setting for this novel is London and environs. Annette is married to a very wealthy art critic who is basically holding her hostage due to early life happenings. She is an art consultant who has just sold a long lost Rembrandt at auction for a client - thus she is now a star herself. Her client has quite a few famous artist paintings in the home he inherits. Annette has a sister Laurie with whom she is very close. Along comes Jack Chalmers a worldwide journalist chosen to do a profile on Annette - sparks fly. Fun book, could have been much shorter.

Annette Remmington is an art consultant and an art dealer. She can tell the difference between a fake and a true piece of art. She can also help auction valuable paintings and sculptures. Annette's career is taking off, but she has a secret to hide and a domineering husband who is helping her hide it.

Marius, the husband, didn't seem as evil and manipulative as he was supposed to be until the very end. At the end, Annette becomes a detective?

I was a bit disappointed when I found out what Annette's horrible, dark secret was. It could have been much, much worse.

I wanted the romantic interest to appear earlier in the book.

The ending was just too easy. Everything just kind of resolved itself.

I don't feel a lot for this book. Neutral. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. There wasn't a lot of content and it was an easy read.

In London, art dealer and restorer Annette Remmington successfully hosts her first major auction of a lost Rembrandt she recovered, saved and sold. Her much older spouse of two decades, Marius demands she allow a media interview to push her fame beyond fifteen minutes as he believes the right journalist will recognize his wife's art genius.

Always obeying her mentor who she feels gratitude towards, Annette meets with Marius' hand-picked reporter Jack Chalmers. While working on her article, Jack and Annette are attracted to one another. She is caught between her desire for the man her own age and the older man who taught her everything she knows. However, the reporter soon uncovers a scandalous dark secret that if revealed could destroy Annette, Marius and even Jack.

Although an older man marrying and mentoring a younger woman with a hunk her age forging a dysfunctional triangle has been done many times (see Control by Kayla Perrin), Barbara Taylor Bradford writes a fresh engaging epic due mostly to the glitzy ultra rich art world. The lead trio is fully developed so the readers understand what drives each of them. Readers know what to expect from Ms. Bradford and with Playing the Game she provides it to her fans.

Harriet Klausner

Bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford is at the pinnacle of her game in her latest book, PLAYING THE GAME. Ever since her first blockbuster novel, A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE, she has shown the world that being a woman with poise, strength and knowledge is the only way to play the game.

Annette Remington is a woman who possesses this substance. She is playing the game in the high-stakes world of multimillion-dollar art auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's in New York and London. As a private art consultant, she is approached by Christopher Delaware, a client whose uncle, Sir Alec Delaware, has recently died and left him an art collection with a Rembrandt in it. Not leaving anything to chance, Annette's flawless promotion of the London art auction and subsequent sale of the Rembrandt for 20 million pounds and celebratory party have changed her life immeasurably. She is the "golden girl" of the art world, and all eyes are on the new star.

Annette's life contains all the elements of a successful party --- champagne, elegance, glamour, artistic legacy and a sexy escort. Her marriage to the much older, charismatic Marius Remington has always been a source of pride for her, but her real sense of pride comes from her own savvy instincts and reinvention of her life. Annette and her sister Laurie take refuge in art, but live in fear that the secret deprivation, suffering and pain from their past will surface.

Bradford indulges her audience with the glamorous world of collecting fine art, adding her signature saga of a woman of substance who breaks the rules while playing the game and wins. Readers absorb compelling stories about the great masters of the 19th century, especially the Impressionists, like a canvas absorbs paint. The Rembrandt in Christopher Delaware's collection is just the tip of the iceberg. The dark and unwelcoming Knowle Court, located in Kent, England, harbors not only the secrets of past Delaware inhabitants, but also hidden rooms full of priceless art and famous masterpieces by Cézanne, Cassatt, Degas, Giacometti, Morisot, Manet and Pissarro --- passed down through generations of heirs. Annette and Laurie, who was crippled in a car accident, work together and present readers with an inside look at the research, restoration, significance of the provenance history, and proliferation of stolen and fake paintings that are coveted by tycoons.

It seems that Annette has it all. An artist would paint her as an exquisite woman sitting in her office surrounded by priceless art and Marius nearby. The casual observer would see a woman with fame, fortune and someone to share it with. What that individual would not be able to see is that Marius is a mentor, confidante, possessor, manipulator, cheater --- and is jealous. When Annette and Christopher decide to mount another auction to sell the newly discovered The Little Fourteen-Year-Old-Dancer by Degas, Marius insists that the very private Annette grant an interview to garner a "big splashy feature about yourself." Aware of Annette's past, Marius strives to select a member of the press who will respect her privacy and says, "Who you are today, what you've become, is all that matters."

Thus far, the picture in PLAYING THE GAME is not perfect, but with the introduction of Jack Chalmers, the painting suddenly draws your eye to a dazzling new focal point. Bradford paints an image of a perfect man: "He's the sort of man who incites women to fight each other, commit adultery, or cry gallons of tears when he dumps them." A sexy and well-traveled journalist, Jack calls home the Villa Saint-Honoré overlooking the Mediterranean in the south of France. He is currently involved with Lucy Jameson, a French cookbook author, but commitment is not in the picture --- until Marius selects him to interview Annette.

The song lyrics "It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along" (England Dan and John Ford Coley, 1977) come to mind after the first meeting between Annette and Jack. It's a "dangerous encounter" that neither can deny. This love affair is destined to be complicated, but "suddenly he was in the middle of her life, and she was breathless." Jack's magnetism is irresistible, and soon he is as integral to Annette's soul as art is --- despite their 10-year age difference.

In PLAYING THE GAME, Bradford paints a picture of passion that includes attraction, anticipation, sexual tension, temptation, desire and surrender. Love at first sight is a masterpiece worth buying at any cost.

--- Reviewed by Hillary Wagy

This is my first Bradford book and I enjoyed it. It's an easy read, although at times drags on too long with minor story lines. But overall it's fun, entertaining, and keeps you interested. I liked the characters and wanted to learn about them, which is the sign of a well written book. I felt the story of Annette's childhood didn't need as much detail as was provided (you can gather the type of person she is from a few lines about what happened and her current personality), but it doesn't really take away from the book. And even though the ending was not really a surprise in my opinion, I wasn't bothered by that. So have fun with it, don't take it too seriously, and enjoy!

I have the Kindle version and it's the first BTB book I've read. I guess the story is OK, but I find the writing banal and amateur. There are repetitions of phrases and words which an editor should have picked up on and I feel the whole thing could be a lot crisper. She makes the kind of mistakes you are warned about in writing class like blatant information dumping and over use of adverbs - so I probably won't bother to finish it.

I read A Woman of Substance in my twenties and I became a lifelong fan of Barbara Taylor Bradford. The Emma Harte character inspired me to start 5 businesses and I have read all of Barbara Taylor Bradford books. Although Playing the Game is not her best work, it is a good read and I'm glad that she is still writing books about powerful heroines. Annette Remington is a strong, complex woman with a mysterious past. She marries the much older Marius who starts out as a supportive, albeit controlling, husband and ends up as an evil villain at the end of the book. Although it starts slowly, the story comes alive when Jack Chalmers comes into Annette's life and I loved the description of their magnetic attraction that grew stronger the more they tried to fight it. If you were lukewarm about this book, don't give up on the author, Barbara Taylor Bradford, who is so really talented. Read A Woman of Substance. It is still her best work and you root for Emma Harte the whole time.

I used to like Barbara Taylor Bradford's work. However, I think the quality of her writing has fallen drastically in recent years. So, I picked this up one day at the library, not expecting much. But it turns out that I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. Yes, the characters are thin. Yes, the writing is bad at times. And yes, the plot relies on some really crazy coincidences. More than once, I found myself saying, "Oh come on... this is so unbelievable." Also, there are a lot of characters in this book--way too many, in my opinion. I couldn't figure out what purpose some of the characters served.

Nonetheless, I liked the main character, Annette Remington, a London-based art consultant, and her younger sister Laurie, who was injured in a car accident as a teenager and is now in a wheelchair. Since this is a BTB novel, it goes without saying that Annette is intelligent, successful, beautiful and chic. She's not, however, so smart when it comes to men. Annette and Laurie are very close--best friends as well as sisters. I give the author credit for portraying Laurie as a smart, vibrant young woman, not a victim. And I also enjoyed the setting of the book--the international world of art. While this is not great literature, I would rate it 3.5 stars if I could. This is a good book to read if you're looking for a fun, interesting mystery/love story, with some art history lessons thrown in.

I can vividly remember reading Barbara Taylor Bradford's first novel, A Woman of Substance, back when I was in high school. Her heroine, Emma Harte, was a brave, strong protagonist, a woman who could overcome anything and run a huge department store, while navigating the tricky waters of romance.

I read many of Bradford's subsequent books, but I haven't read one in awhile. Bradford has been a successful author for over 30 years, mostly by sticking to her formula of strong female characters overcoming the odds through hard work and strength of character, and adding in a forbidden romance.

Her latest novel, Playing the Game, sticks to the formula. Annette Remington is a successful art dealer in London, married to a much older man. She becomes famous for selling a long-lost Rembrandt painting at auction, and soon the entire art world knows who she is.

But Annette has a secret from her past, one that her husband knows of and has used to keep control of her. Bradford weaves tidbits of Annette's disturbing past, expertly piquing the reader's curiosity about the truth. We know that Annette and her sister Laurie were the victims of violence in their childhood, and that Laurie is now in a wheelchair. Is the secret related to their childhood? And why does Annette panic when someone comes looking for a woman named Hilda Crump? All these questions keep the reader turning the page.

While I found the novel to feature typical characters in a familiar plot, with a beautiful woman keeping a secret while falling into forbidden romance, it is the setting that elevates this novel. I found the art world totally fascinating, and Bradford does a marvelous job immersing the reader into that world.

One of the most compelling reasons that I read is that I can learn about something I never knew before, and this book is filled with interesting facts about fine art, art restoration and art forgery. I learned that a priest hole is a small room in old homes where, during the Stuart period in England, aristocratic Catholic families hid their priests when the soldiers came to search the houses. I never knew that before, and now I have new cocktail party conversation.

Playing the Game comes at a good time; many people are talking about Steve Martin's novel, An Object of Beauty, and this is a good companion book for those looking to continue their immersion into the world of fine art.