Zanne Klein never planned to be a personal assistant to Ted and Holly Stabler, members of Hollywood royalty. But a decade in at 38, that's exactly how she spends her days, earning six figures while making sure the movie mogul and his family have everything they could ever dream of.
But today is no ordinary day at the Stabler estate. Tonight everyone who is anyone will be there for the Hollywood event of the season. If the party is a success, that chief of staff job Zanne has been chasing may soon be hers—which means that she will be able to pay off her student loans, buy a house, and give her girlfriend the life she deserves.
Nothing is going to get in Zanne's way—not disgruntled staff, not a nosy reporter, not even a runaway hostess. But when Ted's former business partner, Phoebe Lee, unexpectedly shows up right before go time, Zanne suddenly has a catastrophe unfolding before her—one with explosive consequences. As the truth comes out and Zanne realizes how deeply entangled she has become in the Stablers' world, she must decide if the sacrifices she has made for the job are worth the moral price she has to pay.
Told over the course of a single day and from three perspectives, The Work Wife is a richly detailed novel about female ambition, complicity, privilege, and what happens when the brightest of stars aren't allowed to shine.
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