The Mating Game

"I enjoyed this book. I know of no other successful book that combines chess with a gripping narrative. It is genuinely exciting and a real page-turner. It gives an authentic account of professional chess tournaments, though somewhat fictionalised. It is VERY adult in its, er, romantic content.Do not buy it for your promising child prodigy. Personally, I enjoyed it as it is set in places I know very well, such as Canterbury, Broadstairs and London. I watched Judit Polgar win the Hastings Challengers' tournament half a lifetime ago. It mixes documentary realism with, I hope, vivid imagination in a fresh unpretentious style. So, I recommend the book, but hang on to your seatbelt. Review on Kindle; This gorgeously racy novel should encourage any casual reader to start swotting up on their Caro-Kann defence in the hope of taking on female protagonist Vanny, both on the board and off. I know nothing about chess but I do recognise a dashing romantic adventure when I see one. Buy this book and then look at chess geeks in a whole new light! Highly recommended" - Amazon reviewer ; "I was very much looking forward to reading this book. The writer Jovanka Houska is a famous English lady grandmaster and international master. She is a prolific author of opening books on the Caro-Kann. But how daring is it to come up with a novel, where the main character is a top chessplayer! I started the book with an itch of excitement and full of expectations, but it turned out to be even more surprising that I had suspected. What soon became clear was that I started to identify the protagonist, Vanny, strongly with Jovanka. They are both very strong chess players, both have a chess book to their name, both play the Caro-Kann opening with Black and they both had something to do with a very handsome Norwegian! In the story, a Norwegian appears, and I know Jovanka is married to a Norwegian. That was tricky to read in some ways, because I know Jovanka a little and the book is very intimate about her life. But as the story continues to unfold, there were other events in it and at some point it became clear that fantasy got the upper hand in the story. A Russian multimillionaire, drug offenders and musicians take the story away from the Jovanka I know. The book changes from being a romantic novel to something more menacing: a thriller that's also an erotic book with numerous sex scenes. In this phase of course it was not possible any more to put down the book. At the beginning it took me by surprise that Jovanka could think and write this way, but I soon got bitten by the bug and I looked forward to seeing the new adventures of the main character. Vanny, who in addition to seeking the (male) grandmaster title is also looking to find herself, is an amazing character. She could escape her tough childhood by discovering chess. In chess terms, I could recognise many things from my own experience: how to rescue yourself from a disastrous tournament start and the huge stress that will make you comparatively indifferent to the outside world or just going to parties and seeking relief in sex and booze. However, there were great differences between Vanny and many chess-players. The most remarkable difference was that Vanny hardly knew jealousy, neither in chess nor in her personal life. She was so understanding, perhaps because she did not know exactly what she wanted. I found that hard to believe, as I am so different to her. Vanny comes across as a very fanciful but lovable person, and not as a tough killer on the chessboard, despite her tournament successes. The book is clearly written by an English person, the characters tend to be very polite to each other, except in the wild sex scenes. The language was very impressive: it is a beautifully written book, which could be easily made into a film. Because the protagonist is a woman, I was convinced to the end that the book was mainly written by Jovanka, but that was actually not the case, as the Afterword shows. That Afterword illuminated my confusion about the differences between Jovanka and Vanny. If you want an intimate, exciting, original and daring book, I definitely recommend 'The Mating Game'! I am convinced that women will find this book beautiful, but am very curious about what men will think of it!" - Erika Sziva, schakers.info