The Agency [Hardcover]

I appreciated this novel, The Agency, for what it is. I hate to use the term "chick lit" since I actually thought it was not quite all fluff. It took about 60 pages to get into the book. Tess Drake, the main character isn't exactly like-able at first, but engaging enough to keep reading. Once you got past the background, first 60 pages or so, everything unfolded quickly and constantly until the end of the book. You have your chick lit staples in here, with relationship issues, fashion, women in charge. But - there are also additional fun twists - murder mystery, frenemies, and an interesting agency setting. I read it in one night, I think it's a great plane or beach read.

"The Agency" is surprisingly written by two writers who use the single pseudonym Ally O'Brien - I say surprisingly because unlike so many co-written books, the novel has a single voice - at once feminine, snarky, smart, and randy as all get-out.

And thus it is that "The Agency" is a semi-guilty pleasure to tear through. This is not one of those books that you curl up in your easy chair with a cup of good coffee and a blanket. This is one of those books whose accompanying beverage must have a strong kick.

Set in present-day London, "The Agency" nevertheless feels a bit dated as it tells the tale of Tess Drake, a thirty-six old sexpot of a literary agent. She lives in the glamourous publishing world blissfully unaffected by the current financial crisis hitting the publishing industry. While today's New York Times has a story about publishing houses cutting back on three-martini lunches and holiday parties, Tess Drake's agency is pure flash and glamour - where deals are done over two-hundred pound bottles of Cabernet or martinis at a New York restaurant where mac-and-cheese costs $55.

Tess is a very-successful but no-longer young (in her cruel world, 36 rates you a "ma'am") agent juggling numerous crises. She's considering breaking out on her own but risks alienating her boss, Cosima, a dead ringer for Cruella deVil. She's having an affair with a married man and has also lost her best friend by sleeping with her fiance. And while her best client is a dottering old librarian whose panda books are currently as hot as Harry Potter, Tess's favorite client is a suicidal genius whose first book has been read by about a dozen people. And to top it off, the male figurehead for her company (Cosima is the real power) has just been found dead in kinky circumstances, and Scotland Yard is sniffing around Tess's heels.

All this silliness comes at the reader fast and furious, along with pell-mell pop culture references. Tess lives in the world of high celebrity, and so if you aren't up to speed with Hollywood or fashion, you will miss out on a lot. Tess doesn't have time to explain entirely who "Tom and Kate" are, or just why you should be laughing when she jokes that Liz Hurley is really a man, so you'd better bone up on your celebrity press a bit before reading this book. Fortunately for me (I only have a toe in that cesspool), most of the celebrity references are sufficiently A-list that even I've heard of them.

This is a witty, fast-paced book of treachery, sex, and intrigue. The book jacket promises "sex, drugs, and literature." While there's a definite amount of sex, the whole drug angle isn't really there - except for some references to the off-stage heroin use of Tess's favorite client. And I'm not sure much that Tess publishes qualifies as "literature," either.

But that's neither here nor there - this is funny, clever stuff. Tess is an enjoyable protagonist - talented, proud, and hilariously flawed where judgment and men are concerned. If you're looking for a page-turner and won't get embarrassed by carrying around a book with a brazenly "chick-lit" cover, give it a whirl.

The Agency A Novel by Ally O'Brien

Once you meet Tess Drake you will never forget her. She has it all: the high powered career, the right clothes, many lovers, and is a suspect in a murder. What she doesn't have, she will fight, claw, lie, use her body and scheme to get. You may not like her, you may even hate her as I did, but by the time you finish this novel you will never forget her; and even hope that the author's (Ally O'Brien is the pseudonym for a writing duo) will do a follow up so we can see how Tess fares with the next part of her life.

This book is one part chick lit, one part mystery and two parts pure, unadulterated, evil fun. You see, Tess has a dream. She wants to open her own media agency and it seems that the death of one of her bosses via erotic asphyxia is just the kick in the butt she needs to get her out the door.

Her clients include an eccentric children's writer, a depressed fantasy author who has published a book that sold 11 copies and various others that we never get to meet. The secondary characters kept me going when I thought that I couldn't take one more moment of Tess's slavishness to her body's needs and vindictive, egocentric self-destructive behavior. But the best is yet to come. Her pigeons will come home to roost and roost they surely do.

I ended up loving this book and am very sincere when I say that I hope that the authors do some sort of follow up on Tess's life. After all we've seen her at her worst, she can't get anymore self-destructive (or can she?) so why not let us see her grow? This is a fun and sometimes vulgar look into the life of an agent, and I recommend this highly to anyone looking for an alternative to the angst driven books that seem to populate the shelves lately.

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