Mango Bridge Club: Double Dealing, a new offering by author Annette Corkhill, had me laughing almost from the beginning and turning the pages obsessively throughout. As a person who enjoys a good game of bridge as much as the next guy, this book tickled my fancy more than I could have ever imagined. Detailing the exploits of the members of the Mango Bridge Club, from the crotchety old sticklers all the way to the intriguing new gal in town, the story line follows the various challenges and foibles that the club and the members face. In this laugh out loud funny read, any reader who has enjoyed a good game of bridge, or belonged to a club of any sort, will certainly be able to recognize these characters in those that they know and either love or love to hate.

Mango Bridge Club: Double Dealing was one of the most fun and funniest books that I have come across in a long while. Author Annette Corkhill has done a fantastic job in creating hilarious and believable characters and scenarios that will make any reader chuckle. It's very easy for me to highly recommend this book to any lover of fiction, but perhaps even more to aficionados of the game of bridge. I am hopeful that author Annette Corkhill will continue the stories of these wonderful characters in upcoming new releases. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for exactly that!

Mango Bridge Club is a humorous – and highly addictive – tale written by talented author Annette Corkhill about a social club called Mango Bridge Club and some of its quirky, bridge-crazed-playing members. Mango Bridge Club, located in Mango, a central Queensland mining town, has very little going for it. The modest building is surrounded by mango trees and is overrun by fruit bats that think nothing of splattering members with the compromised fruit when they least expect it. With its air conditioning on its last legs, there’s very little about the club that anyone would actually find appealing, yet it’s the epicenter for 110 demanding, arrogant, conceited, egocentric and oftentimes intolerable bridge-crazed members who would happily sleep there if it meant they could play bridge just that little bit longer.

The club president is Daniel Haywood, a moody and despondent man since the death of his wife, who feels he gets no support from his team and only grief from members like Henry Fotherby, President of the Board for Clean Green Coal Mining, a pompous bridge-crazed know-it-all, who thinks nothing of skimming the profits from his company and awarding himself huge bonuses. Things nevertheless begin to look up when beautiful Emily Maddison and her four-year-old daughter, Ella, move into town from Brisbane. Nurse Emily is eager to put her cheating ex-husband and unhappy life behind her as she eagerly takes up residence at the Mango Bridge Club, and slowly finds her way into Daniel’s heart. However, Daniel’s hopes for a promising romance take a back seat to the far more serious problem that looms on the horizon – the town wants the land the club is sitting on and suddenly Daniel has his hands full, facing off against an unscrupulous councilman.

Annette Corkhill writes a story that is both humorous and infectious, supported in no small part by a band of colorfully-named characters like Maud Duckworton, Tootem Canyon, Charles Bellyfog and Professor Olaf Sandersen - Head of the Department of English, Applied Linguistics, History, Classics, Modern Languages and German Translation at Mango University - as well as local businesses like The Contented Cooling Company and Dunnies Downunder. The author has an uncanny knack for witty dialogue and describing settings without making it seem obvious so that the reader is effortlessly entrenched in the daily lives of the members of the Mango Bridge Club. And while those lives appear to be colloquial and innocuous at the outset, peel away the outer shell for some, like Daniel’s moody demeanor and sullen bark, and there exist loneliness and vulnerability at his core, universal traits in all of us, making it a story that is sure to resonate for many on more than one level. Fruit bats and possums aside, and even if you’ve never played a hand of bridge in your life, take the plunge and head Down Under to the town of Mango and its quirky citizens. I promise you, you’ll be glad you did!

Mango may seem like a small town where absolutely nothing happens, but that’s not the case at all. There’s a lot going on in Mango and it all seems to be stemming from the local bridge club. Not just a place for the elderly to enjoy a friendly game, it’s a hiding place for all sorts of crazy activities from cheating scoundrels on the various boards throughout the area to those who are trying to turn it into a housing project for even more money in their own pockets. There’s no telling what could happen next and no telling who’s going to profit or lose. With Emily the new girl in town, and Daniel just trying to keep things afloat, to Ricky who wants to line his own pockets, and Henry who doesn’t care who he hurts, Mango Bridge Club: Double Dealing by Annette Corkhill is where everything happens.

There were a lot of characters in this book and you always knew what was going on with each of them. The author really tries to take on an omniscient point of view to help you see not just what’s happening at all times, but what everyone thinks about it, even the animals. You get to know more than just why Mango is such an important place to so many people, but also how things could go down when all the secrets start coming out. Mango Bridge Club by Annette Corkhill is definitely hiding some things from the rest of the town, and even some of its own club members.

Oh my! What a fun book I just finished! Mango Bridge Club: Double Dealing by author Annette Corkhill is simply a funny and delightful story that will have readers engrossed from the very start, as well as in stitches of laughter throughout. Follow the story of the members of the titular Mango Bridge Club as they plow through the various intricacies of their lives and the life of the club, now under siege by forces coming both from the inside and the outside.

Delightful character studies abound, with the many and varied personalities that undoubtedly come from a club setting in which members have only one real interest that draws them together: the love of bridge. Club president, Daniel, regrets for the umpteenth time taking on the role, especially with its $0 salary and gift of constant stress, but when a beautiful newcomer comes to town, he realizes his luck just might be changing. And that's just one intrigue that this extremely entertaining read has to offer. If you want to find out more, you'll need to read the book!

I so enjoyed Mango Bridge Club: Double Dealing. Author Annette Corkhill obviously comes from a background in playing bridge, as her hilarious stories could only come from one who has experienced the game fully. Any reader who enjoys bridge, humorous fiction, or just an enjoyable read in general, should absolutely pick up this book as soon as possible! I highly recommend it, and look forward to reading more from the talented author, Annette Corkhill, as soon as possible!