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LOVERS & PLAYERS should be the official publicity tagline for all Jackie Collins novels past, present and future. Her characters are quintessential lovers and players --- bed hopping, pill-popping tycoons, models and heiresses who engage in scandalous love affairs and illicit business deals --- and we love it.
In a live television interview in Atlanta in February 2006, Collins said, "I'm passionate about writing. I love what I do." It shows. Collins has written 24 books, with over 400 million copies in print in forty different languages. Although her books are fiction, she "writes about the world she sees around her…I write about places I go." What a captivating life, or shall I say social circle, that Collins has built around herself, privy to Hollywood stars and starlets, marriages and divorces, studs and bitches.
Collins's writing style leaves little to the imagination. In fact we love her graphic and juicy details. LOVERS & PLAYERS is not as explicit as some of her previous novels and everlasting love is elusive, but Collins's indulgent wild flings and racy bachelor and bachelorette party scenes are much more her style.
Only in a salacious Jackie Collins novel does a virgin New York heiress indulge in a night of unbridled passion with a sexy man she picks up in a Manhattan nightclub at her bachelorette party --- only to find out that he is her fiancé's younger brother just arrived from Italy. "He had the look, the sexy bad-boy look that women always seemed to go for." How could Amy Scott-Simon resist? This is why I love Collins's novels so much. The heroines make bold moves, they have millions to rely on, and they go after the man they want.
We get to know the Diamond dynasty patriarch and media mogul Red Diamond intimately, "for when it came to sex, he was insatiable, preying on any woman he could." His predatory nature, with a little help from Viagra, led him to "conquer, marry and destroy" three wives, a singer, Lady Bentley and a harem of prostitutes. Each wife bore him a son, whom he ruthlessly undermines personally and professionally. Each son hates his father, but "when Red Diamond calls, everybody runs."
Red Diamond summons his sons to his Manhattan brownstone for a mysterious meeting. Despite being raised by a "mean and cruel tyrant," the three very successful and, of course, lethally handsome brothers reunite and become a closely knit trio as they each battle Red's control over their history, addictions, love lives and high-stakes business deals. Tangled sheets, Russian prostitutes, Vegas gangsters and a raucous bachelor party, complete with pole dancing, lap dances and so much more, is at the heart of this family dynasty's troubles.
As if Collins didn't have enough scandal involving the Diamond brothers --- Max, the real estate tycoon engaged to an heiress; Chris, the powerful L.A. entertainment lawyer with a gambling debt in Vegas; and Jett, the hot male model working and playing in Milan --- she tangles the sheets provocatively with an array of other characters who spice up this week of events in Manhattan.
Since anything is possible in a Jackie Collins novel, get ready for the instant stardom of Liberty, a bi-racial coffee shop waitress and aspiring singer who goes from coffee server to cover model to a record deal to "The Tonight Show," and, who through a twist of fate, finds herself an heiress. Even more unbelievable is her relationship with a hip-hop record mogul, Damon P. Donnell, who "had it all --- looks, power, money, not to mention a fleet of Ferraris and, to top it all off, his own plane." Behind his Versace shades, Damon is a married player who says, "live dangerously or you're not livin' at all." Liberty's refusal to be a player when it comes to Damon forces him to evaluate whether he wants to be a lover or a player.
The female lovers and players comprise their own dynasty of power and passion. Amy Scott-Simon debates between her ten-carat engagement ring and the brother who gave it to her, and the brother she is in love with. Her wealthy Grandma Poppy, who was a lover and a player, advises, "If.…is the man for you, then you must follow your heart, dear, follow your heart. Otherwise you could spend the rest of your life regretting it."
Mariska, Sonja and Lady Bentley are strong women who face the mob, the tyrant and the paparazzi. One of them is found in a pool of blood in her bed --- the life of the rich and famous, Jackie Collins-style. Italian supermodel Gianna, "a fun-loving, sex-mad goddess," makes an entrance wherever she goes and thoroughly enjoys being a player. No man could resist Gianna when she strode toward him like "a magnificent panther --- sleek, naked, and ready for action."
Nobody writes about the rich and famous, sex, scandal and secrets better than Jackie Collins. Her characters are billionaires, not mere millionaires. Diamonds are an heiress's best friend in Manhattan, a city where prostitutes think they are "therapists to very rich men." Money, inheritance, fateful meetings, lovers and players make Collins's newest novel more than sensational --- it's living dangerously at its best.
--- Reviewed by Hillary Wagy
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