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 Susan DiPlacido writes with an ease that carries the reader painlessly into a complex exploration of a woman going against the odds and learning to accept that she's much more than she ever suspected.
Reviewed by Biff Mitchell
24/7
by Susan DiPlacido
Zumaya Publications
2005, ISBN: 978-1-55410-217-4, 441pages
Author Web Site: www.susandiplacido.com
Susan DiPlacido is not a writer for weak-stomached literary wimps. Her first novel, 24/7, is an unrelenting sex fest chic lit masterpiece set in the world's most addictive city.
Marina Martino is a 30-year old single with enough emotional baggage to sink an oil tanker. She's never had a lasting relationship, her father habitually adds 20 pounds to a physical image already inflated in her mind, she drinks too much, she swears too much, she's a crutch to all around her: her life seems screwed.
But she's relatively happy and contented. She's compassionate, attractive and smart, and her job allows her the time off she needs to pursue her single passion: gambling. Marina has a second life in Las Vegas where she indulges in the barely legal art of card counting. Not only is she good at it, but she's good at not getting caught because she knows how to keep her cool in a life balanced by predictability and resignation.
Until she meets Miguel Rodriquez. He's everything she always knew she would never have in a man: deadly handsome, enigmatic, great in the sack and, wonder of wonders, apparently in love with her. Miguel sweeps her out of the static routine of her life and drags her clawing and biting into a world where she is beautiful, desirable, and also great in the sack. "He wants me," she thinks. "He. Wants. Me. Even after he's already had me."
Just as she starts to accept a new vision of herself, Miguel's past catches up to them. He has dangerous friends and dark secrets. Marina's faith in her ability to hang on to her dream beau is in for an epic cleansing in the industrial-size washer that will test the book's opening lines:
The odds are against me, but I can change that. Because I may not be lucky, but I'm damn good.
Spoken in true chic lit lingo.
24/7 has another character just as real as Marina and Miguel: Las Vegas. The city explodes across the emotional canvas of Marina's life with dazzling lights, dealers and movers, stars and bartenders, the essence of the American dream:
Vegas. Dice and dinner, craps and comics, hot slots and hookers. Free shots, loose slots and easy sluts. Las ***** Vegas. Conceived from a dream, built on blood and with the same thing keeping it running year after year.
Greed.
It is the Dream. The New American Dream. Money for nothing.
But as Marina understands, the odds are in favor of the casinos, not the gamblers. The casinos, she claims, are unbeatable.
Which is exactly why some people have to try.
It's that slight glimmer of hope that keeps them coming back, and it's that slight glimmer of hope that keeps Marina hanging on to Miguel in the biggest win-or-lose gamble of her life.
Susan DiPlacido writes with an ease that carries the reader painlessly into a complex exploration of a woman going against the odds and learning to accept that she's much more than she ever suspected. The descriptions of Las Vegas are compelling, almost as dazzling as the lights themselves, making 24/7 a great read for anyone who likes their literature served up with the lust and language of an illusory world populated by real people. On a scale of 1 to 3, I give this one 24/7.
Reviewer: Biff Mitchell
Reviewer Web Site: www.biffmitchell.com
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