Only a Game
Sherry Gibson
Publish America
Interesting read ... Recommended ... 4.5 stars

Diane Morgan thinks she may be going mad. She loves her family, son Alan 17, daughter Crystal 15 and her husband Robert. Robert is not home as much as the family might like. He is a deep sea fisherman, has his own boat the Donna Lee and cannot fathom what the problem facing Diane might be. Diane would like to discuss her worries centering around Alan with her husband, however Robert is never quite in the mood to listen. Diane fears her own son, or a least his evil counterpart. The game the evil Alan insists they play is one that terrifies Diane. There was one more child in the family, little Becky died as an infant. Diagnosis SIDs. Diane knows it was not. A series of fearsome murders, the last of a popular girl Alan dated down along the docks convinces Diane that she must do something. Alan and Crystal worry that Diane is losing a battle for her sanity, maybe she is suffering from stress.

Writer Gibson has crafted an absorbing page turner sure to draw the reader into the tale and hold them fast from the opening lines to the last. If I had to give a one word review of "Only a Game" that word would be B-r-r-r-r-r. This is not a book for a dark and stormy night when you are home alone. Read "Only a Game" in the middle of a sunny day, with the lights on.

"Only a Game" centers around Diane and Alan, Diane's worry over her son and Alan's resistance to his Mother's 'prying'. These two characters are well developed, others in the book are not as fully evolved. Dialog between the pair, the interplay between a contumacious Alan and near to frantic Diane make for interesting reading.

Robert, Alan's friends Joe and Ed, even Crystal are more peripheral. It was an interesting technique and writer Gibson has carried it off well. The relationship between mother and son, Diane's worry that Alan is two part, an evil Alan and a good Alan, and the final perhaps surprising explication proffered by writer Gibson all make for an excellent read.

Writer Gibson's handling of the interplay between Diane and her children rings with a genuineness of one who has seen teens and moms attempting to deal with problems and one another. "Only a Game" is a book sure to appeal to those who enjoy suspense and not a little horror as they read.

Well done, happy to recommend.