Friday

"The creative mind plays with the object it loves." (Jung)

You are invited to play...

HEAD GAMES

...the only game of psychological skill and chance to require murder, romance, and madness.


Object of game. Manipulate the minds of opponents in a personal pursuit of sanity, revenge, or redemption.

Roles in play: 5.

Blair Donovan: gifted pianist, secretive, Jack’s love interest
Philip Donovan: psychologist, exceptionally intelligent, adoptive brother of Blair
Jack Valentine: psychologist, man of compassion, meets Philip then Blair by chance
Maggie Miller a.k.a. Nana: the Donovan nanny for ten years
Bill Jordan: Philip’s lifelong friend and lover


Game pieces. The Donovan diaries, black gloves, brown case, beloved cat, gun.


How to play. Requisite opening move(s) by any player(s): parricide. Opponents then attempt to satisfy personal needs and achieve individual objectives arising from any or all murders. Key strategies must include psychological manipulation and re-creation of realities. Game pieces may be brought into play at any time by any player for any purpose. No move is prohibited.


End game. Resolution occurs when the loser dies, yet a definitive win is unlikely. Always comes another day, another need, another play.



Not sure if you’re up to the game?
Then live and learn vicariously through Head Games,
the novel, and delve into that intangible called mind.




ΨΨΨ




Thanks for indulging me. I couldn't resist. :) A standard Book Description follows:

Craziness. If asked, could you recognize it? Most say “yes,” but are you sure? Even among psychologists and psychiatrists understanding is murky, and in Head Games the reader must decide what is “crazy” and who is crazy. Blair Donovan certainly has no doubt that Philip, her adoptive brother, snapped and murdered their parents; her lifelong fear and hatred of him say so. Philip Donovan, a gifted psychologist, insists that Blair’s accusation stems from paranoia and delusion and a baseless need for revenge; her psychiatric commitment seems to prove his point and perhaps her own culpability for the murders. Yet for Jack Valentine all is in doubt, despite his being a psychologist, and both his deep-seated guilt over his own mother’s death and his love for Blair compel him to discover the truth. Still, the noblest of intentions and the best laid plans can end in tragedy if born of deceit and head games…


I also invite you to read the beginning of the story, the prologue, in the next post.

Unpublished work © 2010 Cynthia Bias