Playing Flirty
Shameez Patel
Hatchette
Review: Lauren O’Connor-May
I got very excited when I saw this book. A brown Capetonian author, writing about a leading, brown romance character. I wondered, are we finally getting a brown South African romance heroine.
Alas, no we are not. While elsewhere in the world romance characters have become more diverse, in South Africa we are still lagging behind in this department.
This story, set in San Diego, is about Rose, a semi-conservative office worker with a highly-detailed life plan. Her plan goes off the rails when three-months after she had scheduled her engagement on her colour-coded excel-spreadsheet life plan, her relationship with her long-term boyfriend Patrick appears to be going in the opposite direction instead.
She finds solace is game night, a weekly meet up with her set of quirky friends and archnemesis to play board games.
When a competition to develop a new board game has her digging out and re-evaluating her own unfinished game, she finds a new unmapped life goal that ignites in her a long-lost excitement.
The only person who can help her get the game competition-ready though is her sexy rival William, whose teasing and dour aloofness has long ago put them at odds.
Throw in a creepy boss, some family drama, wedding plans and pole dancing and you’ve got the bones of this novel, which is fleshed out quite nicely since the author hasn’t sacrificed whole chapters to spicy scenes.
I liked this book, despite my initial disappointment, and South Africa does at least get a mention, albeit only in passing.
