View source for Truth Games by Bobbie Darbyshire

{{infobox 
|title= Truth Games
|author= Bobbie Darbyshire
|reviewer= Louise Laurie
|genre=General Fiction 
|summary= This is a fast-paced and breezy romp of a story.  Centred around a group of friends in the trendier spots of London, it's not so much the swinging sixties but the sexy seventies.
|rating=4 
|buy= Yes
|borrow= Yes
|pages=288 
|publisher= Cinnamon Press
|date= June 2009
|isbn=978-1905614721  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk> 
|amazonus=<amazonus>1905614721</amazonus> 
|sort=Truth Games
}}

The central theme in this book is sex - and lots of it.  We're introduced to a group of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethings.  Men and women.  Most of them are attractive and hold down glamorous jobs and careers.  All in rude health, with wonderful social lives and trendy homes.  They all appear, on the surface, to be a bunch of shiny, happy people.  What on earth could be missing?
 
The group meets regularly and there's usually lots of lovely food and plenty to drink and a rollicking good time is had all - well, mostly all.  Sexual partners are exchanged, bartered, swapped - just stopping  short of selling raffle tickets and the general philosophy for contentment and happiness appears to be - if you want it, then bloody well grab it.
 
Set in the mid-70s, it's pre-Thatcher but the book has a distinct I'm-out-for-what-I-can-get feel and it's all about me-me-me.  It's also set in the year of that dreadful drought, so everywhere in the book is ''gluey with heat.''  You can just imagine the baked London pavements and the heat of the Underground.  Unbearable.
 
We are given a flavour of individual characters.  Plenty of slender, long-legged people, as you might expect.  And an oddball or two thrown in for good measure.  To keep things interesting.  Even the couples who are married and appear to have everything - are off swapping partners before you can say 'your place or mine?'
 
There's some nice witty lines dotted throughout the book.  There's also some lovely descriptive pieces such as ''We've still got the whole of this evening.  Can't you just feel it, stretching ahead of us like a warm cat?''  And a great line which almost had me laughing out loud when someone in the group was quoting an article which she'd recently read which said ''  ... more single people get depressed, even when the married people aren't happy with each other.  They call it having a 'significant other' ... it really helps to have one, even if you hate their guts.''
 
Throughout the story, we're given a taste of the 1970s.  Its music, food, clothes, home interiors etc.  A real flavour of that period.  And, of course, it's all served up swaddled in this oppressive heat.  I remember that year of the drought when grass turned brown, hose-pipes were banned from being used and everyone was praying for rain.
 
... and talking of grass.  The grass is always greener on the other side would appear to be the motto of many in this select group of beautiful people.  Beautiful on the outside, that is.  For Lois, for Jack, for Zoe for example.  But while most of them had acquired the tangibles - the nice house, healthy bank balances, swanky cars etc, it's the intangibles causing all sorts of problems.  As one male member of the group puts it ''Who gets every single, last thing she wants, when she wants it, and still isn't content, like the fucking princess and the fucking pea?''    Feelings of inadequacy, envy, jealousy and yes, frustration - even with all that sex on tap.
 
But all this bed-hopping sometimes comes at a price.  People may get hurt, relationships may break up.  Ultimately, it's all about happiness - that elusive intangible.
 
This is a frothy, fun book to enjoy with a glass of wine and a box of chocolates, curled up with the cat.  Happy reading.

I'd like to thank the author for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
 
If this book appeals why not try [[Last Christmas by Julia Williams]]?

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