Playground of the Gods

by Cathy Cash Spellman

Overview

6 beautiful women6 powerful high-rollersAll trapped in a deadly war on a South Sea IslandSex, murder, a curse and a typhoon...Will anyone survive this vacation in Paradise?It begins with an invitation to the world's most exotic pleasure island. It becomes a nightmare of obsession and murder.Thoros Gagarian, one of the world's richest men, owns a private island paradise in the South Pacific. He and his five closest rich-and-famous pals have planned a week of sex and sunshine. Each has chosen a "trophy" woman to take with him to Paradise - but the girls don't yet know that's the name of the game.A violent act triggers an action-packed battle of the sexes, but when the jungle threatens to consume them all... when the island of Mora Utu itself, demands blood sacrifice, both the men and the women must reconsider who their allies really are, when life and death hang in the balance.The Playground of the Gods mixes Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with obsession, lust, murder, and surprising self-discovery, to deliver audacious, non-stop adventure in the wild, as sex, treachery, heroism, and a pair of native sorcerers re-write the rules on love and survival.Publisher's Weekly: "A fast-moving plot with panache, weaving in plenty of explicit sex, action-packed adventure and credible characterization."San Antonio Express-News: "A page turner... a story of fantasy and revenge."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780983408796
Publisher:	Wild Harp & Company Inc.
Publication date:	09/28/2011
Pages:	474
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.06(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Best-selling author, Cathy Cash Spellman has written five books that have been New York Times and International Best Sellers in hardcover and paperback.

Her books include:

• So Many Partings
• An Excess of Love
• Paint the Wind
• Bless the Child
• The Playground of the Gods

They've been sold in 22 countries, and Bless the Child, starring Kim Basinger and Jimmy Smits, was a successful Paramount movie in 2000.

Cathy is an Astrologer and has written extensively about esoteric subjects from metaphysics to healing and mysticism. She has both practiced and written about a wide variety of healing modalities, including Cranio Sacral Therapy, Polarity, Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese medicine, Qi Gung, Native American Shamanic Healing, and Spiritual Healing. She holds Black Belt rank in Goju Ryu Karate and teaches both Women's Empowerment and Energy (Qi) Workshops.

She has been a monthly columnist for Mode and Grace Magazines, Sweet16.com and Astromessenger.com. She has written for Mademoiselle, Self, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Town and Country, and Kung Fu magazines on health, energy, beauty, sexuality, woman's empowerment and many other topics.

Cathy invites you to visit her website at www.cathycashspellman.com

Editorial Reviews

On a remote, idyllic South Pacific island, the war between the sexes takes on new heat in Cash-Spellman's (An Excess of Love) latest novel of romantic suspense. Billionaire Thoros Gagarian invites five of his equally wealthy, arrogant and macho friends to vacation with him on Mora Utu, the magnificent island he has bought, having expelled the last remnants of the native population. Unknown to him, his friends and the six women invited as ``trophies'' for a week of sybaritic pleasure and sex in the sun, the departing natives have cursed the island, and Mora Utu will demand a sacrifice. When mob boss Tony Capuletti rapes Swedish model Marika, the men try to buy silence with a big check. The furious women leave the compound, but not before dismantling the airplane that is their only means of returning to civilization. Living in the wild, and counseled by Gagarian's Yaqui Indian servant, Nelida, the women bond, discover feminine empowerment and become ``a tribe now, a sisterhood.'' Some of the men, too, find new areas of sensitivity and vulnerability in themselves. A series of perilous misadventures for both sexes culminates in two violent deaths and much physical debilitation. Ultimately, the sexes are forced to take shelter together as a murderous typhoon slams down on the island. Cash-Spellman orchestrates a fast-moving plot with panache, weaving in plenty of explicit sex, action-packed adventure and even some credible characterization. She errs in making Nelida and her husband, Emilio, agents of mystical spirits; they talk to dolphins and make such statements as: ``She is on Death's schedule, but she has not yet been collected.'' (There is explicit acknowledgement of Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Women Who Run with the Wolves and other mystical writings.) Women readers probably will overlook this posturing, however, and enjoy the tale as engaging commercial fiction. Major ad/promo. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Billionaire Thoros Gagarian had planned the ultimate vacation for six of his closest friends, the wealthy, powerful men who for years participated in his monthly poker games. For a week they and their carefully selected trophy dates are to enjoy his recently finished private paradise on his own South Pacific island. However, nature has other plans, and soon the men are paying dearly for having disturbed this particular universe. As they battle first with the alienated women and then with the elements, the men discover that money and position have given them a false sense of superiority, while the women learn to rely on each other and their considerable strengths. This riveting tale by the author of Bless the Child (Warner, 1993) could nonetheless have benefited from further exploration of the men's relationships among each other. For popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/95.]-Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.

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