Publisher: Ana Spoke

Synopsis:

Debt is always negative, no matter how positively you try to look at it. Fifteen minutes of fame is all Isa Maxwell needs to solve her financial woes and win back Brad, the love of her life. Trouble is she doesn’t have a talent needed to get discovered, become a celebrity, or “show Brad” what he’s missing.

She doesn’t even have enough self-awareness to understand what is happening around her. What she does have, however, is determination and sheer luck. When Isa literally lands on her butt in a billionaire’s office, she also accidentally lands the job of her dreams. She soars up the corporate ladder and is offered opportunities to change the corporate marketing strategy and renegotiate a major merger. Not a small feat for someone who doesn’t know what “marketing strategy” or “merger” mean to begin with.

Meanwhile, she seems to attract attention of new love interests – a hot cop, a mysterious neighbor, the billionaire himself, and even her best girl Tara. Life’s a dream. Until it turns into a nightmare. Can Isa survive the tough world of corporate intrigue and constant looming bodily harm? Or will her persistence cause the end of Shizzle, Inc and possibly her life?

Goodreads

Amazon

First things first, I absolutely adore the cover of this book. Sod it, I’m not afraid to admit that I judged this book by its cover and I was totally right to do so, for reasons I’ll explain in a sec.

Secondly, this book was brought to my attention by the author via her own blog , asking for folk who’d read her book to post up reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I was just being nosy and had a look on Amazon to read the blurb and immediately decided to buy it based on the cover alone, but I also realised that ‘Spoke’ was actually Ana’s surname and not just a blog handle – so I’m a little bit embarrassed on that one and clearly need to start paying more attention.

Right, down to the nitty gritty – this story wasn’t the kind of thing that I’d usually read, I do seem to spend most of my time reading fantasy/horror/classics but it’s good for the soul to branch out occasionally.

This did have the spirit of the debut novel about it, not only are you following the development of the story and the characters, you can actually follow the development of the author along the way which is something I find particularly cool in indie novels and films.
You can spot the point at which the author got into her stride and the whole book flows from that point on.

The story itself is completely eccentric and utterly hilarious, a parody of a young woman starting her career in a giant corporation and the general shenanigans she gets up to as the protege of the even more eccentric billionaire owner of the company.

It’s exceptionally fast paced, so hang on to your hat – but despite the unconventional characters, you still find that Isa has a very recognisable kind of relationship with her family and friends. Her parents want what’s best for her but have no idea how to go about providing this, her sister wishes she was closer to her but is too busy raising her nutty twin sons and her best friend loves her, but is currently busy building fake bombs with ping pong balls. You know, standard stuff.

The last 15ish% of the book (I love Kindle stats) is a lot calmer, Isa has learnt a lot about the world and starts making things happen instead of just letting them happen to her, which I think means that any subsequent books she stars in are going to be very interesting!

“If life really were like a box of chocolates, then every now and then, when you bit into one, there’d be a turd inside” – Isa Maxwell, Shizzle Inc. describing my thoughts about last week exactly.