Chances (novel) blackout, a real event that Collins describes in some detail affects all the major characters either directly or indirectly. Gino's story begins in 1921 but backtracks to narrate details of when Gino's parent's, Paulo and Mira Santangelo emigrated to New York City from Italy in 1909 when Gino was three. From an early age, Gino takes to a life of crime, stealing a car at the age of fifteen and ending up in a juvenile home. Chances (novel) Chances is a 1981 novel by Jackie Collins and the first in her "Santangelo" novels series. The novel has three focal points,
Jackie Collins at a writer's conference. "I love what I do. I fall in love with my characters. They become me, and I become them." Collins died on 19 September 2015, of breast cancer, two weeks before her 78th birthday. She had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer more than six years before her death but kept her illness almost entirely to herself. She reportedly informed her sister Joan Collins two weeks before she died and flew from Los Angeles to London to appear on the ITV chat show "Loose Women" nine days before her death. Jackie Collins Jacqueline Jill Collins