Learning Curves
A Novel
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
From the dazzling author of Little White Lies and When in Rome . . . comes a rollicking new novel of love in the boardroom.
Jennifer Bell used to travel the planet with her boyfriend, fighting the good fight for mother Earth. But after the breakup (not a good fight), Jen moved back to London to work for another mother: her own. Harriet Bell founded Green Futures, a consulting firm, after splitting up with Jen’ s big-shot father, who runs a rival (and Harriet thinks corrupt) company. But Harriet can’t expose his crimes without proof. And she wants Jen to find some.
Since Jen hasn’t seen her dad in more than fifteen years, it’s a snap to infiltrate his company . . . under an assumed name, of course. Soon she’s worming her way into the good graces of the company’s managers to find evidence of wrongdoing. What she discovers is that her father’s world is a whole lot different from her own–filled with Palm Pilots, MBAs, martini lunches, designer suits, and Daniel Peterson, a guy who puts the gorge in gorgeous. Suddenly Jen is torn between Birkenstocks and Jimmy Choos, tree-hugging and air-kissing. Could it be that her Big Bad Dad isn’t the monster her mom made him out to be? Or is Jen simply being seduced by the power of hard deals, hot nights, and wads of cash? Only time will tell–preferably from a Cartier watch on the wrist of Daniel Peterson. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Townsley's latest bouncy novel, British 20-something Jennifer Bell navigates corporate and family intrigue with a mix of pluck and na vet . Jen's divorced parents, Harriet and George, are at political and personal odds: George heads a management consultancy firm, Bell Consulting, and Harriet runs a leftish environmental firm, Green Futures, where Jen is a recent hire. After a 15-year estrangement from her father, Jen surreptitiously re-enters his sphere at her mother's urging. Harriet suspects George of involvement in a property deal bribery and conscripts her pliable daughter to go undercover at his 3,000-person firm, where Jen flies under the radar as a student in the company's M.B.A. program. She snoops for dirt until her father finds her hiding in his closet. While Jen and George (who's not really the "cheating, selfish, unethical ogre" her mother says he is) begin a rapprochement, Jen also falls for Daniel Peterson, an M.B.A. program guest lecturer and bookselling executive, and discovers that, despite her do-gooder convictions, she may have inherited a knack for business. But when news breaks implicating Bell Consulting in the bribery scandal, Jen must re-evaluate which parent she can truly trust. Townley (Little White Lies) delivers a charming if predictable third novel.
