Game of Chance

Nothing foreshadows the shambles into which the lives of four women of very diverse ages and backgrounds are thrown when their husbands’ chartered plane vanishes in the Amazon jungle. Stunned by the disappearance, along with the news that the pilot neglected to file a flight plan, the wives band together, attempting to track the men on their catastrophic trip and discover whether they are dead or alive.

Looking for company records that will tell them more about their husbands' partnership, a venture that has won a bid to design a satellite tracking system over the Amazon Basin for the Brazilian government, the three women are baffled by the discovery of a cache of alexandrites in a previously unknown safe deposit box. The appearance of these rare gemstones, as valuable as diamonds, is the first hint of the clandestine lives their husbands were leading.

Sandra Cuza was born in Kansas and raised in Los Angeles. After graduating with a BA from Mills College, she moved to London where she lived for nine years and worked as a reader for CBS films, a waitress, an actress in food commercials and a teacher in a state school for maladjusted youths. Her first book was based on the latter experience and was made into a feature film which she co-wrote, launching her career as a writer. Two more novels were published on her return to California where she worked as a waitress, earned an MA and devised and taught a Creative Writing course at UCLA. After moving to São Paulo, Brazil twenty one years ago, she condensed the UCLA course and taught it annually under both the auspices of the American Society and São Paulo´s largest language school. She wrote articles, short stories and a cookbook of Brazilian recipes, was on the Board of a Brazilian children's charity and was active in the community affairs section of the American Society. She has lived in Orleans, France, for the past year.