All In by Nell Stark

All In
by Nell Stark
Pages: 264
Date: June 14 2014
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: June 27 to 28 2016

The player and the ice queen meet. Though neither are typical for those roles. One is gracious and outwardly open, and happy, and everything that goes against the idea of ‘ice queen’. But that’s outwardly. She works as a host – the gracious host. It’s her job. Romantically? Relationships? She barely has any friends, and she just doesn’t date. At all. Not since she was 16. That would be Vesper. Casino host in Las Vegas.

The player? Not the typical player. Atypical. I’ve run across a few atypical ones in my reads. There was that one in Brayden’s universe who more used that player reputation as a shield; the one in Galli’s universe who got a player reputation because she, almost nightly, went home with a different woman – but she was helping them, the drunk women, get home, not helping them to her or their bed for sex (why she didn’t fight the ‘reputation’ is something I didn’t understand at the time, nor now); then there’s the one oh, darn. That is also Galli universe. The Virginia clan one was in fact a player, but had decided to not be anymore, kind of bored with it, but hadn’t gotten around to letting everyone know. The ‘took women home nightly’ was in Galli’s most recent book (Clichéd Love, I think it was called). Here? Nova is, in fact, something of a player. Though . . . not. She has no trouble sleeping with women and putting the moves on women, but she kind of fell into being a player by accident.

Nova arrived on a college campus, back in the day, and got talked into someone’s bed, and – once the women of the campus realized there was ‘new meat’, they all sampled her. And she was quite up for that. Then she fell into a situation wherein she lived with . . um . 4? Other women in a group home type situation. And they kind of fell into and out of each others beds. So while she is a player, she’s an accidental player. She doesn’t really have much ‘game’ – she just happened to fall into situations wherein a lot of women wanted her, and she was okay with that. As opposed to her seeking out women to charm, hump, discard.

So, those are the two main characters. Vesper is working hard to advance herself and always believes someone wants something from her, a quid pro quo. Nova is a very talented math genius who is super good with poker. Made millions through her abilities. Is just about to buy her dream home. Except . . . her money was made illegally – through online gambling (online poker). That's the set up at the start of the book.

Now Nova is in Las Vegas, attempting to make some money through live poker but she is very much not 'built' for live poker. Antsy, needing to constantly move. No ability to ‘school’ her features, to assume a poker face. Very good at reading people on line – seeing patterns, very bad at reading people in person, reading tics, movements, bluffs. She is doomed for failure, but she’s still trying.

So – the book follows Vesper as she ‘hosts’ people at her casino (one of whom turns out to be Nova, though that’s more of a favor to an online gambling place); while Nova strives to learn live poker by playing little games before the world series of poker. Romantically the two circle each other. Vesper is very much opposed to relationships. Nova wants to hump Vesper, and maybe have something more – though that more part confuses her.

I liked the book, enjoyed it even. There was just a small undefined 'something' missing though that keeps me from rating this 5 stars. That undefined something, plus the ending kind of felt a little rushed, and there were a few plot lines left dangling (like how Jeremy did in the tournament. He was still in it but . . . book didn't say how he did. And it's not like the book ended before the tournament ended. The book ended . . . what, months later? Days? An hour after Vesper got the hotel job offer? Hmm. Hadn't noticed before that I've no clue how much time passed between Vesper got the job offer, she took it, then she ended up in Los Angeles at a specific party. But still, how ever much time passed, it was after the poker tournament was over, yet no idea how Jeremy did (unless I just completely missed seeing it, which is possible).

June 28 2016