ADVANCE READERS HAVE called The Gentler Gamester "Shakespeare set in a watermelon patch" and "Shakespeare with Spanish moss." The main character, an out of luck young man in Lowcountry Carolina, finds Dame Fortune's favor. In a series of unexpected events, she is ever turning her wheel; and a cast of characters experience life's unpredictability. The Rodger and Loutrell subplot provides comic counterpoint to a serious tale of one man's redemption. The plot conveys a message of hope that in the darkest moments, the possibilities of grace are more nearly perceived.

The work is set where the world of folk myth intersects modern reality. It is a world in which the most unlikely of miracles still happen.

James Kibler is best known for his Fellowship of Southern Writers Award winning Our Father's Fields, which has now become something of a classic. This fiction has garnered praise from George Garrett, Ron Rash, Fred Chapell, Robert Morgan, among others. The Gentler Gamester is Kibler's sixth work of fiction.