The Players Club

Literary agent Mills debuts with an intriguing if tonally uneven novel of a London woman whose life changes as she sinks deeper into her habit of pretending to be other people. Beth, aimless at 38, has few friends, and her only family is her sister, Elspeth. After seeking to get out of her rut by role-playing different types of women, including a fitness instructor named Nikki Love, she is approached by Leila, who invites her to join a secret group of women who engage in a game called Life-Play. Leila and the three other members are slow to fully accept Beth, waiting to see whether she will commit to their rules. Though the group’s handbook prohibits dishing on Life-Play to outsiders, Beth regales Elspeth with tales of their exploits, such as becoming a professional Elvis impersonator and a Cirque du Soleil aerialist. The whimsical role-playing group is a neat concept, but it winds up taking a backseat to the much heavier story of Beth’s reasons for committing to certain roles, especially after Elspeth is diagnosed with cancer. The result is a striking but flawed tale of a woman’s identity crisis. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (May)