It’s Jackie Collins book time! And today’s offering is a thick 1970s tome filled with more sex, drugs, rock and roll and SCANDAL SCANDAL SCANDAL than you can shake a (heeheehee guess what I ALMOST TYPED) stick at. Now in my epic review of The World is Full of Divorced Women, I might have mentioned Tom Jones Al King, English singer stud extraordinaire. Fling those panties at the stage because Lovers and Gamblers is SUPERSIZE AL KING. AL IS KING! LONG LIVE AL!

Okay, so there might be a few other characters than Al King. There’s his hottie younger brother/manager Paul, the brothers Kings wives Edna (dumpy) and Melanie (brittle bitch), Paul’s piece on the side Linda, Al’s dopey, pimply, horny (aren’t those some of the seven dwarves?)  teenage son Evan, lots of groupies, up and coming agent Cody and yeah this chick called Dallas because it ain’t a Jackie Collins novel without a sleek feline beauty with wild hair and cat eyes and a body that makes empires crumble and bikinis say ‘Thank God!”.  Since her name isn’t Lucky Santangelo, Dallas has blonde hair and green eyes but to be honest, nobody is looking at her eyes.

Here’s the basic plot: Al, sales beginning to slip, is gearing up to tour for his AL IS KING album. Al is a giant walking hardon. He sees Dallas in a tv beauty contest and BOING! Dallas got issues. Dallas and Al meet and don’t do it do it for various plot reasons. Then they do hook up, the stars are right, they are IN WUB and then EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

True confession. Even with all the sex (remember rock star=groupies), Dallas’ past (runaway turned ho turned lesbian ho turned blackmailing beauty queen), the return of Karmen (Queen of the Freaks) Rush and the utter hotness of brother Paul, my favorite part of Lovers and Gamblers  is EVERYTHING GOES TITS UP!

****SPOILERS AHEAD***** SERIOUSLY****SPOILERS AHEAD***If you read on, it’s on you**********

It’s a Jackie Collins novel and you’re thinking okay where are the gangsters? But then Al’s plane is hijacked by a sexy rebel who wants to ransom the capitalist pig Al to help the shirtless ones and then the plane goes off course and CRASHES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING AMAZON! And one person gets eaten by alligators. Another character gets eaten by a jaguar. And another character’s fate makes me not want to go outside without being covered head to toe because EMOTIONAL SCAR is still stuck in my head over 20 years after I read Lovers and Gamblers  the first time.

And the final pages. Oh, those final pages. Those slightly chilling last words that make you want Jackie to sit down at her leopard skin covered laptop and type the sequel until her crimson talons are little stubs. Okay I’m pretty sure that’s not how Jackie really writes her books but a person can dream (the leopard skin covered laptop with bright red keys). Because seriously, I don’t really care any more about the current adventures of Clan Santangelo. But I still want to know what ended up happening with Al and Dallas 30 years down the road. Was AL IS KING Al’s last stand? Did Dallas become a total monster of fame? And most of all! Is Paul still the mega hotttie mchottie King brother? If only, if only…