Blind Submission

By Debra Ginsberg

Angel Robinson loves books. So a job at a literary agency would be the dream job. Except for one thing: her boss, Lucy Fiamma. Lucy is demanding, unreasonable, self-centered and impossible. Angel finds herself swamped with tons of work, surrounded by hostile coworkers, trying to satisfy her difficult new boss and explain to her boyfriend why having his girlfriend working for a famous literary agent does not translate into getting his novel accepted by the agency.
But it turns out Angel has a knack for spotting potential new books and for helping the authors fine tune their books to make them more saleable. Lucy gives her a huge raise and takes her on a trip to New York to meet with some very important publishers.
But it isn't all good news. Angel's boyfriend is upset that his book was rejected by Lucy and he blames Angel. And Angel has received an anonymous manuscript for a book that seems to be based on Angel's own life. More and more chapters are sent to the agency and Angel is afraid that someone close to her is writing a rather hateful book in which the character based on Angel is conniving, selfish and homicidal. Who would do such a mean thing? And why?

Reading this book was kind of like reading The Devil Wears Prada again. Angel's boss Lucy is very similar to the boss in The Devil Wears Prada, unreasonable, demanding, ambitious & successful. The stuff about working in a literary agency was interesting. But, as I got further into the book, it seemed to be dragging on too long and I just wanted it to be over.