Smorgasbord Book Review – #Thriller #Gambling Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) by Cara Bertoia

Delighted to share my review for the thriller set in a casino and its desert surroundings Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) by Cara Bertoia

About the book

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California. Native American casinos have just opened, thousands of people from all over the world came to work there, money flowed like water, and real estate became the new status symbol. And then came The Great Recession, and suddenly the partying stopped.

Alone, desperate and deeply in debt, she lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino. She is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar. Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption. As she moves up through the ranks of management, her bond with John deepens.

In the process of uncovering the underbelly of corruption her list of enemies grows. Sometimes you have to gamble like your life depends on it. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

My review for the book April 6th 2024

I have visited several casinos in Las Vegas and other gambling hotspots and found the fascinating, even though I only usually played the slot machines.  I don’t think that most visitors to these establishments think too much about the logistics of managing the massive movement of customers, money and the staff. The author’s own experience in working on cruise ships and casinos is very evident and it was amazing to discover all that goes on behind the scenes.

Caroline Popov is very likeable and the reader soon comes to appreciate how far she has come following heartbreak to a highly competent casino manager, who combines an eagle eye on every move made on the tables and at the slots, with an empathetic approach to staff and customers alike. Backed up by the charming John Tovar she begins the task of rooting out those who manage to evade all the surveillance equipment to line their pockets on both sides of the tables, and to build a well trained and winning team on the casino floor and behind the scenes.

This makes enemies and one in particular is prepared to use violence to exact revenge. It becomes a challenge to identify who is friend and who is intent on harming her, and trusting the wrong person might be fatal.

This is a high octane thriller with a back story filtered in to the plot as the story progresses about Caroline’s past which reinforces her strength of character and determination to work hard towards a better future.

After several surprise discoveries, there is a final twist that I certainly didn’t see coming which brought the book to a very satisfactory ending. I can highly recommend.

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – Amazon UK

Also by Cara Bertoia

Read the reviews and buy the books: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK- Follow Cara: Goodreads – Tiktok: Cara Bertoia – Blogspot – Twitter – Instagram –Bookbub – Facebook

About Cara Bertoia

Cara Bertoia grew up in a strait-laced Southern family, but she was always fascinated with casinos. In her twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, she drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. She discovered that after teaching high school, handling an unruly gambler was a piece of cake. Her mother highly disapproved of her working in a casino, “a place so bad it has ‘sin’ in the middle.”

Eventually, she succumbed to pressure from the family and returned east to take a hi-tech job in Boston. She also began working on her MFA in writing at Emerson. Her goal was to write the first realistic novel about casino life from the perspective of an experienced table games dealer. She is always amazed that normal and sometimes quite intelligent players become absolutely clueless in the casino. They repeat superstitious nonsense and no amount of logic can change their position, maybe her novel will.

While in Boston she was offered the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. Jumping at the chance, she spent the next five years circling the globe. Sometimes life exceeds your dreams. She was awed by the wonders of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in St. Petersburg.

Cara returned from ships with a very special souvenir, her Scottish husband Ray. They went to work at the Spa Casino in Palm Springs, and now live in Hollywood, Florida, where she writes about her casino years while wistfully gazing out at the ocean.

 

Thank you for dropping in today and I hope you will be leaving with some books.. Sally.