The Games People Play

A page-turning and emotional novel about ambition, and how sometimes what you really want is not what makes you happy. All Rachel wants is to be is the most successful British tennis player ever - and to keep a boyfriend, which isn't easy, when her life seems to consist only of tournaments, training and travelling. All Rachel's mother, Michelle, wants is Billy back. Her second husband has just left her for another woman after ten years of domestic bliss in their pink clapboard house in Lawrence, Kansas. All Rachel's grandmother, Gordana, wants is for her family to be happy. At one time she thought she wanted to be a singer like Sandie Shaw, but she now realises that life doesn't usually work out the way you think you want it to. The person they all have in common is Ivan: Rachel's father, Michelle's ex-husband, and Gordana's son. He was once a pro tennis player like Rachel, but now he has big problems of his own. Rachel won't speak to him because she blames him for the break-up with her last and most serious boyfriend. Michelle won't speak to him because she's just discovered he's been keeping a terrible secret from all those who love him. And Gordana does nothing but try to speak to him, but he doesn't want to confess to the one person who's still - just about - on his side. Then Gordana, the lynchpin of the family, falls ill. Forced to spend time together during a period when all their lives are changing rapidly, the three women begin to look at one another, and themselves, in a very different light.


Genre: General Fiction