Hypochondriac Gambler : A Tale of Hermes

Hypochondriac Gambler is a mesmerising study of addiction, meditation on the power of love, and celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.

Kate Lamont, a psychiatrist, frequents online casinos in search of relief from the trauma induced by a severe psychosomatic disorder, only to fall victim to an all-consuming gambling addiction. Her life is spent in a blur of pain, bereavement, and roulette.

'I once saw my Big Win as a private token I'd be taken care of. Here was mercy and therefore hope, compensation for my suffering, the hostile operations of fate. The Win was a declaration of love, that was the most abiding feeling - of being loved and valued, precious to the Unknown.'

So writes Kate, reflecting on her plight.

'Yet, today, I recognise the event as a personal catastrophe which permanently shifted the foundations of my life. It poisonously supplied the missing spiritual dimension for which I'd unconsciously been seeking in my wounded, vulnerable, state. Through the Win, gambling became imbued with the numinous: nothing less than a form of worship, prayer, driven by yearning for recognition and transcendence, bypassing my will.'

Kate is haunted by the tortured ghost of her dead fiance, Mark, who died in an accident which she witnessed but remembers nothing about.

Her loss triggers the onset of severe headaches. She attributes these to a brain tumour, but her GP insists her symptoms are psychosomatic, with causes hidden in her unconscious. She resists psychiatric explanations and struggles to accept his diagnosis, while he urges her to find interests as distraction from obsessive thoughts of illness.

A colleague's casual remark that he finds gambling recreational snags her attention. Intrigued, she signs up with an online bookie but inner reservations prevent her from immediate play.

At her hospital workplace, she receives a referral which turns out to concern the man who betrayed and abandoned her twenty years before. Against her better judgement, she agrees to a consultation with him which ends in personal humiliation.

In inescapable reaction, she gambles for the first time and has a massive win. Addiction speedily takes hold. Self-respect and livelihood are soon at stake, but she's unable to give up the relief gambling provides to fear and unbearable pain.

Meanwhile, she meets Jack at an art exhibition; they become close. The god Hermes appears to her in Jack's home. Thus she renews acquaintance with the deity previously revered and active in her life, but who had become occluded in her mind by the catastrophic events that have befallen her.

Recovered memory of Mark's fatal accident reveals a secret which further threatens her sanity. How can timely intervention by Hermes prevent her descent into madness and gambling hell - and release her from the past?

What Goodreads reviewers are saying about Hypochondriac Gambler:

The slow slip into addiction is portrayed with gripping intensity. E.K.F.

Hypochondriac Gambler is an immersive psychological drama where art, mythology and superstition collide. The novel is an intense exploration of one woman's descent into crippling gambling addiction but this is also a tale of hope, acceptance, forgiveness, healing and new beginnings, carefully composed and beautifully written. C.W.

This book was a thrill ride from beginning to end. The characters are complex and thoroughly engaging and the prose style is brilliantly executed. The nuanced exploration of addiction and its consequences, vivid descriptions of a disorderly state of mind, and manipulative twists and turns are additional highlights of the book. Very compelling and entertaining read. M.T.