The Mating Game

Pamela C. Regan’s The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex, and Marriage, Third Edition is the only introductory text about human mating relationships aimed specifically at a university audience. Encompassing a wide array of disciplines, this comprehensive review of theory and empirical research takes an integrated perspective on the fundamental human experiences of attraction and courtship; mate selection and marriage; and love and sex. Strongly grounded in methodology and research design, the book offers relevant examples and anecdotes along with ample pedagogy that will spark debate and discussion on provocative and complex topics.

Despite enormous changes in patterns of dating and courtship in twenty-first-century America, contemporary understandings of romance and intimacy remain firmly rooted in age-old assumptions of gender difference. These tenacious beliefs now vie with cultural messages of gender equality that stress independence, self-development, and egalitarian practices in public and private life. Through interviews with heterosexual and LGBTQ individuals, Ellen Lamont’s The Mating Game explores how people with diverse sexualities and gender identities date, form romantic relationships, and make decisions about future commitments as they negotiate uncertain terrain fraught with competing messages about gender, sexuality, and intimacy.

Meet Ivana ('call me Vanny') Jones, a sexy, beautiful, warm-hearted professional chess-player. She has a problem: she's only attracted to guys who can beat her... so what's she to do when a chess amateur, the Russian billionaire Boris Bogolyubov, proposes marriage?Not only that, but as Vanny tries to achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a chess grandmaster, she develops a crush on Norwegian sex-god Sven while also falling for a stunning and adoring Frenchwoman. Meanwhile, Vanny's hoping a revolutionary new drug treatment will save her best friend Charlotte's life.Set in London, Monaco, Budapest, Helsinki, Odessa, New York... and Leicester, this sparkily written, passionate, emotional and entertaining novel will rock your boat... even if you've never shouted'Checkmate!'

Romance novelist Mallory Gennaro, who uses the pen name "Zoe Wilde, " is offered an all-expense-paid trip to England by British Ph.D. Dexter Harrington, who wants "Zoe" to contribute her expertise to his paper titled "Sex and the Human Species." Mallory hasn't told Dexter her only experience with romance is fictional, but in this case, the usual rules in the game of love don't apply.

The Mating Game follows the lives of three African American best friends looking for romance in the nation's capital—but despite their charm, wit, and success in their professional endeavors, their diverse approach to the dating game isn't getting them results. From the streets of Washington and New York to the steamy French Quarter of New Orleans, Trey, Vince, and Erika leave a trail of pandemonium in their wake. Trey is a character that you love to hate-an ardent player who relishes the hunt. With his dapper good looks, quick tongue, and insatiable personality, he seems to be forever running from Layla, an exotically beautiful woman with a mysterious past. Five years ago she was the love of his life until she ruined him. Vince is the successful, ruggedly handsome, hopelessly romantic Renaissance man, who is searching high and low, seemingly without success, for his ideal mate. Vince finds beauty in every woman he meets-until it becomes painfully apparent that they are not the one. And then there is Erika, with her confidence, beauty, brains, and tough, no-nonsense attitude; she thinks she has finally found her ideal man. But when problems in the bedroom crop up, they make her step back and take a serious pause. Along the way, Vince, Trey, and Erika’s friendship is tested as two mysterious women enter their lives. Suddenly their world is spinning madly out of control, and when the dust settles, things may never be the same between them.

Now updated, here is a sparkling and hilarious remake of the comedy that has played around the world since its two-year run in London's West End in the 70s. Set in a smart, ultra-modern Mayfair apartment full of automated furniture and gadgets with minds of their own, The Mating Game features a celebrity television personality with a reputation as a great stud, but whose romantic interludes are, in reality, always interrupted by accidents, fate, or his own incompetence.