Customer Reviews
Outrageously compelling - By: MAB, 27 Aug 2008 
Chances is the saga of the Santangelo family & follows Italian stalllion Gino in his rise from tough street kid to millionaire gangster, as well as his wild daughter Lucky (possibly Jackie Collins' most beloved character) & her quest to make her father proud & Carrie a black socialite with a haunting past she's desperate to keep secret.
Perhaps not as literallly adept as some of her contemporaries (although this particular novel was written in the late 70s so her style may have developed in the last few decades), Jackie Collins has become synonymous with the blockbuster (bonkbuster!) novel. Helped by her insider knowledge into the workings of Hollywood, the lives of celebrities & the dark underbelly of fame, what she lacks in writing style she has more than made up for with her outrageous plots & equallly outrageous characters.
A real page turner with a fast paced plot which speeds full throttle through the decades to a heart stopping & thrilling conclusion.
Amazing! - By: DevJohn01, 11 Oct 2005 
If I could give Chances more than five stars I would! Chances is the first Jackie Collins book that I have ever read & I think that I started with the right one.
Chances takes you from 1913 alll the way up to 1979 in a tale that begins with Gino Santagelo the infamous mob boss & his rise to power. Gino came from very humble begings, an abusive father, a mother who abandoned him at the sage of five & a damageing stint in a juvinle detention center yet managed to work his way up to owning two of the most successful hotel & casinos in Las Vegas. But once Gino is force into exile his duaghter the beautiful Lucky Santangelo takes over the family business & makes a name for herself as one of the most powerful women in Las Vegas. And lets not forget the story of Carrie & her son Steven. Carrie was forced into prostitution at a very young age & lived a life filled with drugs & alcohol that took her from various whorehouses to running a very successful one of her own, until the birth of her son Steven that is, when she managed to find a better life for her & her son.
This was a brilliantly written story, however, while the chapters that focused on Gino may have been more exciting, Carrie's story was reallly superbly written. This book is reallly a great lead in to the second installlment of this series 'LUCKY' which I plan to begin reading right away. I give Chances 6 Stars!
You can't put it down! - By: SLP, 05 Nov 2003 This gripping novel contains the 'usual' JK style but with a sprinkle of innocence. (As one of her earliest peices) The very beginning of Gino & Lucky, evidently written as she explores her own path of inspiration. Page after page of cleverly scripted material which delivers mind sharpening activity & real emotion like no other!
I have read nearly alll of her novels, but this one is hard to match, let-alone beat! So Enjoy!
Chances - By: NICOLA BROWN, 12 Sep 2003 After reading this book in secondary school, it had an impact on my life that I could never imagine. It is the sort of book that you could read again & again. I am now re-reading the same book for the god knows how many times.
Jackie Collins is very straight-forward in her wording & has definitely made this saga of books her best by far.
After reading the first book in the series, the others just seemed to follow very naturallly. Now that Jackie Collins has been writing for a long time, sometimes it is a good idea to go bnack to the beginning & start reading again.
a fast-paced stimulating read - By: claire@chastings.freeserve.co.uk, 08 Jan 2000 This is Jackie Collins at her hottest & very best! JC skirts cleverly with the mafia business, never giving too much away, & always leaving the reader wanting more. At times Gino Santangelo is a ruthless, cruel man, then he'll surprise you by acting in complete contradiction, & you find yourself loving him again. The book is far from predictable, & despite some of the least nice events (like murder), it retains a sense of humour that somehow makes you think it was OK to kill that nice guy reallly. This book is compulsive reading, full of strong characters, lots of action, thrills, & Hollywood gossip. Miss it at your peril, but be warned, you may need heat resistant gloves to turn the pages, because they SIZZLE!
