Standalone Sunday: The Game of Love and Death

Standalone Sunday is a weekly feature created by Megan at Bookslayer Reads which aims to showcase standalone books which you loved or would recommend.

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The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now…Henry and Flora.

For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.

Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?

Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.

The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.

Achingly romantic and brilliantly imagined, The Game of Love and Death is a love story you will never forget.

The Game of Love and Death was on my TBR list for a while before I finally got around to reading it. It was one of those books I added and then pretty much forgot about until it randomly caught my eyes again, and now part of me is kicking myself for not having gotten around to it sooner.

This book is incredible, and reading it brought to mind two of my all-time favourite reads The Night Circus and The Book Thief. Chances are if you’ve been following my blog for a while you know how I consider both of these books all-time favourites of mine, so the fact that I’m comparing The Game of Love and Death to them goes so much further to explaining how I much I loved it than anything else I could say.

“If life didn’t end…there would be no need for me. To choose love in the face of death is the ultimate act of courage. I am the joy, but you are the meaning. Together, we make humanity more than it otherwise might have been.”

You can check out my review for The Game of Love and Death here.

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What did you think of The Game of Love and Death? Have you read it yet or is it still on your to-read list? Let me know in the comments and let me know if you took part in this week’s Standalone Sunday as well.