DAVID ADAMSON HARPER Author
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In 1953 Sandy and Alex meet and fall in love in Adelaide, South Australia. She comes from a wealthy Catholic family and he is the son of a shopkeeper and an Anglican. Her mother has marriage plans for her and takes Alex to Italy to keep them apart. He goes to Oxford University where he achieves great success in cricket and rugby football.
For the next seven years their love has to overcome many conflicts and is sorely tested by a tragic event and her Catholicism. In 1961 now working in San Francisco and believing Alex lost to him forever, Sandy falls in love and marries Kate but Alex, now finally free of her marriage, returns to him plunging his life into chaos.
Will he be able to bring an end to this never ending gamer?
4.0 out of 5 stars Epic love, interesting life
This was an epic love story. Sandy, an Australian student at oxford, meets the beautiful Alex. They fall in love, but circumstances keep them apart. A controlling mom manipulates events so that Alex has to marry the man that is best for family wealth and business. Sandy tries to keep Alex in his life, but soon is distracted with other women and studies, as well as sports like rugby. It’s interesting the way the author goes back and forth between current day, and what happened in the years while Sandy was at Oxford. Occasionally, it’s hard to keep up with what’s happening, but it becomes clear as the story goes on. The romance between the main couple never really dies. It’s a sweet love that runs throughout the book. I like to think that this is a couple that is meant to be together, though it’s hard to see some of the conflicts and pain that they go through. I actually had to pause the book for a while, because the pain was so real in the book that I needed to step back from it and get less emotional over what was going on. I think the book would have had more impact if there were less in depth descriptions of all the sports Sandy was playing. Though I can understand why it’s in there, to show who he is. Men probably would enjoy the sports part better. I liked to get to the romance of the book. That’s the heart of the story for me. I liked getting to know the people in the book…the uncle, the various women in Sandy’s life. It makes for an interesting life as it’s laid out for us to see. —LB
4.0 out of 5 stars An enduring love affair.
The Game that never ends. This book was a surprise. I did enjoy the book even though I knew nothing about cricket or rugby. The chapters that talked about the games were a little boring because I didn’t understand the terminology of the games. But it did help understand how the game opened up doors for Sandy throughout his life. The romance between Alexander/Sandy and Alex was definitely crazy! They were in love and painfully lived through all kinds of heartache. Sandy made many stupid mistakes because he needed to be loved. Alex made careless mistakes to satisfy her family and the Catholic Church. All of the mistakes didn’t help them get back together. But the God of Cricket as Sandy put it brought them back together in the end. I was surprised that the author didn’t write more about what happened after Sandy met Kate and married her. I thought that would have been just as important as his other encounters with the women he fell in love with. I was waiting to hear how Alex came out of nowhere and seduced him again to mess up his marriage after they called it quits. This was definitely a book full of drama for the two people who were in love and didn’t know how to make it work. I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. Good read! —Gladys Mills