Julie's Review: The Agency

Summary: Meet Tess Drake. She’s earned everything she has. Now it’s time to get what she deserves…Sexy super-agent Tess Drake has worked hard to make a name for herself in the glamorous yet cut-throat entertainment industry. Tess works at an international agency, where she skillfully manages some of the world's biggest egos—her company, Bardwell International operates in the thrilling, fast-paced worlds of Rights, wrongs and revenge. Tess has been an agent there for longer than she cares to remember and now she's in trouble. Real trouble. After the mysterious death of the agency's senior partner, Lowell Bardwright, Tess's sworn enemy, Cosima Tate, has taken over and would do anything to send Tess's career down in flames. And Cosima is only one of the rogue’s gallery of agents in London and New York who want Tess to take a fall. Tess has another little complication, too. She’s sleeping with men on both sides of the Atlantic who are in bed with the women who are trying to sink her.

Can Tess jump ship without losing her clients and breaking her heart? Or will she lose everything before finding out if she really has what it takes to do what she’s always wanted? There’s risk and reward in this wickedly funny novel that turns the world of agenting inside out and lays bare all the ambition, sex, adrenaline, bad luck, and good luck at the center of one young woman’s success. ~StMartinspress.com

Review: The Agency is a fun, witty, quick read. I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers and am so I glad I requested it. I love anything about the Entertainment industry and this book was about the little written about world of Publishing Agents. What a world it is. I know that most lines of business are cut throat but this business takes the cake, in my opinion.

You can't help but like Tess even if she's brash and has a "no holds barred" attitude, but she's honest and knows her flaws; one of them is thinking with the nether regions of her body. That gets her into trouble all the time.

Tess is at the point in her life and career where she's ready to break out on her own and start her own agency. The problem is that her boss just died and there's a new boss in town and she's not exactly a big fan of Tess. We meet Dorothy, Tess' biggest and most successful client and she's up for a new contract. Tess wants to keep her without a deal until she can break out on her own. This is where the fun starts.

The cast of characters is fun from her assistant Emma, her married lover "Darcy", her dear friend Sally, her other client Oliver and a few more. Time is over the essence when you are going out on your own and the book doesn't cover more than a couple weeks in time. This lends itself to a very quick pace and it keeps you on your toes.

I can't say a whole lot because it'll give the novel away. I can see that there is a pretty big twist that I did not see a mile away but there is something else that occurs that I figured out towards the middle of the book. I didn't mind because it was Tess' realization of everything going on around her that makes the book savvy and entertaining. I think one part of the ending is a bit unrealistic but not so much that I think it's not possible. After all the book is about the entertainment industry.

I'd like to see Tess come back in another novel; following her into the next phase of her life. Seeing how things are turning out for her. I highly recommend picking up The Agency for a good read. It would be a perfect beach/vacation book. I devoured it fairly quick.

Final Take: 4/5