Up The Ante by P.J. Trebelhorn

Up The Ante
by P.J. Trebelhorn
Pages: 264
Date: January 19 2015
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: June 22 to 24 2016

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I randomly found the book when I was wandering the profiles of various friends looking at their favorited authors (actually, I’ve said that before in a thread, but I just realized that I might have found the author by looking at random people’s favorited authors, as long as they had also favorited Lea Santos).

The book description on GoodReads gives a good little synopsis. Woman, Jordan Stryker, gets diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Leaves the FBI. Heads to Los Vegas to see if she can make a go at playing poker professionally. While in Vegas bumps into the woman she loved and had a relationship with 15 years ago. More specifically, that woman is the only woman that she has loved – the woman she judges all others against. The woman who told her to leave and never contact her after Jordan told her that she loved her.

That other woman being Ashley Noble, though she was Ashley Green when Jordan and Ashley had their thing. I would have said ‘relationship’, the relationship word works, but using it might imply things. See, 15 years ago, Ashley Green was a police officer in LA, with the LAPD. She was married to some guy whose first name doesn’t matter, but whose last name is Green. Until bumping into Jordan because of business, she never even considered being attracted to women (I believe that was expressed once or twice, though also the concept that she was in fact attracted to other women before Jordan, but never thought of it as a romantic attraction . . . or something like that). By ‘business’, I mean, Jordan Stryker was on a task force with the FBI in LA tracking a killer. She worked with Ashley. The husband was also a cop, but an undercover one. While the husband was out on assignments, Ashley would meet up with Jordan at Jordan’s hotel and they’d hump. They both knew from the beginning that (1) Ashley was married; (2) she had no plans to leave her husband – in fact they were trying for a child; (3) Ashley claimed to not be a lesbian; (4) this was just a fling.

Near the end of the assignment, Jordan and Ashley were in Ashley’s hotel room. Jordan couldn’t stop herself from blurting out an ‘I love you.’ To which proclamation, Ashley turned and told Jordan to get out and never contact her again.

They had neither seen nor contacted the other before the start of this book. Jordan does not know that Ashley is now Ashley Noble, or that she is the head of security at a specific hotel in Las Vegas. The same hotel that Jordan is staying in. She’s there in that specific hotel because that’s where a poker tournament is occurring (actually several, some low level ones, then a world series of poker tournament). For her part, Ashley did know Jordan was going to be there – because one of her friends who knew of the Ashley-Jordan affair (and yes, that is the type of relationship they had had, an affair), saw Jordan’s name on the poker tournament list of attendees, and brought this to Ashley’s attention. Ashley immediately changed the work schedules so that she would lessen the chance that she would bump into Jordan. Ashley’s plan was to never see Jordan while she was there.

The first night (day?) in Vegas, Jordan plays a warm up game of Poker. She wins. Is flirted with by a woman. A rather attractive woman – whose name doesn’t matter. While cashing out her chips – and on her way to ‘have coffee’ with the gorgeous woman, Jordan spots a specific woman on the other side of the money cage. In the cage. They both see each other. Ashley flees. Jordan is stunned. Confused. Continues her date with the gorgeous woman (less of a date than a pick up). They go back to her hotel room. Knocking on the door – there’s Ashley. She needs to explain what happened 15 years ago.

And so the two meet again. The feelings both had resurface, though they didn’t have to come that far from inside – as both strongly feels for the other.

This is the second lesbian fiction book that I’ve read that involved a woman with multiple sclerosis. There were some similarities and some differences. The ‘don’t want to be a burden’ was similar. The ‘meet someone again after a long absence’ was different – and an important plot point (since, having it here, allows one or the other to think about and/or bring up the concept of – ‘if we had been dating/in a serious relationship, when you were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, do you think I would have left? And/or felt ‘obligated’ to stay?’). Both the woman in this book and the woman in Jae’s Just Physical feel, to a certain extent, to be ‘undeserving’ of being a ‘burden’. And they both want others to find a true love that would be fully capable of all physical activities. By no means are they the same book, though. Heck, one involves a Hollywood actress hooking up with a new acquaintance – a stunt woman – both in their 20s. The other involves a woman hooking up with an old acquaintance and two women older than their 20s; it isn’t specifically stated, but based on the 15 year gap in the relationship, and their work positions when they did know each other, they are both probably in their 40s, possibly 50s but certain ‘things’ seem to indicate that isn’t the case – the age in the 50s part (the closest I recall to overt confirmation of age, is a ‘grandmother’ who is ‘only’ 11 years older than Jordan – and who became a grandmother when she was 32 – but no mention is made as to how old the grandmother is now, so I can’t subtract 11 years from the age to get Jordan’s current age; she’s a grandmother to someone who is, at least, in their 20s – adding ~25 to 32 to get 57, removing 11 to get 46 – so Jordan might be somewhere around 46 years of age).

All that work to attempt to pinpoint ages. Mmphs. ‘Her father died from a self-inflicted gunshot would seven years ago, when Jordan was thirty-six.’ Jordan is 43. ‘I’m forty-three years old.’ Bah. I didn’t need to look for hints. Or even do the simple math of adding seven to thirty-six. Mmphs. I do not know what Ashley’s age is, but the same woman that Ashley says is ’11 years older than Jordan’ is also ’14 years older than her’ – so I’m going to assume that means that Ashley is 40. And that Sherry, this grandmother I’ve been referencing, is 54 (I was off by 3 years).

Well, I just spent way too much time distracting myself with dates and ages. Mmphs. So I’ll cut this short.

1) I liked this book, it was entertaining. I’d rate it somewhere around 4.5 stars if I could. Since I can’t on Goodreads, I’ll give it 4.
2) There is graphic sex in this book.
3) There are certain cliché’s that pop up, re: someone with MS; and it is certainly ‘convenient’ that Ashley’s next door neighbor just happens to also have MS.
4) I plan to read another book by this author.

June 24 2016