The Agency

I rarely read/enjoy chick lit. I have no idea what made me pick up this book, but I'm glad I did. It made me smile, it broke my heart and it was surprisingly suspenseful. At first I disliked the heroine,Tess Drake, (possibly more than I've ever disliked one) for being a selfish bitch. Bit by bit I learned that that's not all she is, and by the end I absolutely adored her. She's opportunistic and promiscuous, but also vulnerable and (mostly) loyal. Tom Cruise makes an appearance, which is kind of awesome - I see Tess Drake as the Jerry Maguire of the publishing business.

I loved The Agency, and it made me think I should give this genre a try more often.

As a veteran of the publishing industry and as an agent of Bardwell Industries, Tess Harper has made a career in multimillion dollar deals and scheming her way to the top. Tess is unapologetic about her attitude, her political incorrectness, her sexuality, and her willingness to make enemies to get what she wants. But when Tess' boss dies unexpectedly and her sworn enemy becomes head of Bardwell, Tess begins taking steps to set out on her own and start her own Agency. Up against a copyright lawsuit, a homicide charge, an abundance of relationships gone sour, and innumerable mistakes when it comes to men, Tess' dream of independence becomes a tale of thwarted ambitions and unceasingly evil revenge.

The Agency is a quick, delicious read. show more The authors break with some of the more conventional and formulaic devices of a traditional chick lit title, resulting in an almost dark and depressing tale of human folly. Nevertheless, The Agency is not highly literary, but quirky and fun. show less

This story of a woman in a publishing house has some slightly interesting story lines. There is a murder, but it is mostly relegated to the back burner. One-dimensional characterizations - look, here is a drug-addled but brilliant writer, here is egomaniacal bitch, here is a balding chauvinist, here is a babbling PETA supporter - are peppered throughout the story.

The focus of the story is on the agent, Tess, one of the most unlikable main characters I have read in a while. She finds it amusing to spread a rumor about the murdered person, who happens to be her boss. Tess is an incredibly selfish, egotistical, shallow, stupid, thoughtless woman who thinks Eminem is "a genius". As this pearl of wisdom was stated on page 10 of the book, I show more would have stopped reading it right there, but this is an Early Reviewer book, so I forged ahead. To add to her "characterization", we find that Tess loves having sex with married men or a man who is engaged to one of Tess's alleged friends. She states several times that she just can't help herself in betraying her friend, that basically she is lead by her clitoris and she simply can't say no. Are you getting the point of what a waste of time this book is? Let me have Tess describe herself: "Not everything is about me. Just most things." One might think she says that wryly or with self-deprecation or irony or even a lame attempt at humor, but no. She *means* it. Tess seems aware of how shallow and self-centered she is when one of her clients is going to commit suicide and she spends the entire time thinking about how it effects her. Knowing you are shallow doesn't really make this book any better or entertaining.

Sadly, the ending is completely unsatisfying, as she spends all of one day having to deal with the ramifications of her actions, and then boom! she gets what she wants.

Completely annoying and not recommended reading. show less

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 show more 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. show less

Candy: high quality and completely without nutritional content. I gobbled it down. Tess Drake is a cutthroat (that is, successful) literary agent in London who's not above starting rumors about the recently deceased, sneaking around with very very wrong men, married and engaged, and lying lying lying. She knows she's wicked but seems to chalk it up to being a job hazard. As Heidi Klum says, "One day you're in, and the next day you're out." And so it goes for Tess, who despite her best efforts leaves her back exposed to the figurative knife. Quite intelligent, this book, and maybe a tad more sophisticated than The Devil Wears Prada.

It's really well done, so much so that I was surprised to discover that the author is actually a writing show more team of two. (I usually avoid two-author novels, don't you?) Well-plotted satire, quite funny, good dialogue and a satisfying ending. If you like The Devil Wears Prada, as I did, you will probably like The Agency. show less

Note: I received an ARC of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme.

Tess Drake is a high-flying literary agent on the staff of a top entertainment agency. Sufficiently high-flying that she wants to branch out on her own, rather than continue to take a salary that's a fraction of the money she brings into the business. As the novel opens, she's just been given one final push in that direction by the death of her boss. Tess liked Lowell; she loathes Cosima, the woman who's about to take over, and the feeling's mutual.

The problem for Tess is that she's made more enemies than just Cosima along the way to success. She's left frantically trying to put together her new business without letting slip what she's doing, in the show more middle of the uproar generated by Lowell's death from auto-erotic asphyxiation. Oh, and then there's the police investigation into the suggestion that Lowell's death wasn't an accident, and that Tess might have had something to do with it.

It's fast, funny, and more than a little over the top. It's also unashamedly for an adult audience, as is obvious right from the first page. There is swearing and there is sex, and most of it is there for genuine plot and character development reasons. There's also a lot of acidly funny commentary on the entertainment business, with much dropping of real names to add to the realism.

Tess is often unlikeable, but she's also aware of her flaws, and there's real growth in her character during the book. She's also fiercely loyal to a few people for more than commercial reasons, and genuinely regrets the damage she's accidentally caused to relationships she valued.

The book's a blend of chick-lit and mystery, and does a good job of both, but is not going to appeal to everyone. I can see why the reviews on LibraryThing range from loathing to loving it. For me personally it was a page-turner, and while I sometimes wanted to shake some sense into Tess, by the last few chapters I very much wanted her to break free of the trap that had been laid for her. The novel is complete in itself and does have a satisfying ending, but I'd love to see what happened next. I'd gladly read a sequel to this book.

It's also available in unabridged audiobook, read by Kate Reading. There's a sample available at the Audible.com page. show less

This looked like it was going to be an interesting take on a working woman fighting for her financial and career independence. Instead it was a typical fluff-lite-fest of the main character reveling in making catty remarks about other people and angsting about her love life, which mostly consisted of sleeping with a married man. Not for a second could I believe the publishing-industry protagonist actually read books for pleasure. Give this one a pass. (And I'm mystified why the authors used a pseudonym, considering they're both identified on the copyright page.)