Review: The Game of Triumphs

The Game of Triumphs by Laura Powell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



GoodReads Synopsis: At an exclusive Soho party one rainy night, Cat stumbles into an ancient and dangerous game of fortune. A mysterious quartet of game masters deal out challenges—moves that unfold in the Arcanum, a dream-scape version of our world. Success can earn players fame, fortune, inspiration. Failure can be deadly.

At first Cat is skeptical, but undeniably curious. And when a journey into the Arcanum reveals a shocking glimpse of her family's past, Cat begins to understand what drives people to play. Sometimes it's greed or longing—other times desperation. She must know more.

Right now, the game masters hold all the cards. But Cat finds others like herself on the fringes of the game. And together an unlikely group of chancers hope to change the rules in their favor.

In the Game of Triumphs, the risks are high, but the rewards may just be worth dying for.

My Thoughts: This was a fantastical recreation of the tarot based in another dimension tied to our dimension. The players were knights and were playing for great rewards. Usually they had to survive the fates dealt by 5 “lesser” cards to actually get their reward/triumph. Some of those cards were dealt by the Game Masters and some were dealt by a roulette wheel.

This sounded like a great story from the synopsis. But it was a little slow to get going and the author spent a great deal of time explaining the game and how it is played. But once it came to overthrowing the GameMasters…that happened very quickly and easily which just didn’t jive with all the in-depth instruction we’d received.

I would have liked to know the characters a bit more, they lacked depth. We knew how they got into the game and that they were “chancers” but nothing else. The story, however, had a lot of depth…starting out so grand and then fizzling out towards the end.

I read this story was geared toward middle schoolers…my middle schooler is interested in role playing video games, not so much a Dungeons and Dragons environment. But maybe the might and magic of the book would make up for the lack of video game aspect?? I think this appeals more to the 40 year old that grew up at the beginning of the home video game era and who probably played D&D or knew others that did.




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