Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game ~ Tilly Bagshawe

Funk Rating: 6.5 out of 10

There are few storytellers today that are as good as Sidney Sheldon was in his heyday. I was intrigued to see what the estate would do in letting someone else use his classic characters in a "sequel" (at the risk of stating the obvious, Sheldon died in early 2007). Sadly, as talented at Tilly Bagshawe is, she just couldn't pull it off.

This book is about the next generation of Blackwells, and while she sets it up nicely with some characters you love to hate (I wonder if Sheldon outlined the characters and plotline?), she tries too hard to make it move quickly. She moves too fast between storylines, trumps up and down relationships like whack-a-moles, and never really connects the dots. Oh, it's not an awful read, but it's far from a good one.

Candidly, you'd be much, much better off getting an old paperback of the original Master of the Game and leaving this one to get moldy in the Amazon warehouse. It just isn't worthy...