Gemma Townley Learning Curves

Learning Curves

Gemma Townley

Ballantine, Mar 2006, $12.95

ISBN: 0345480031

Harriet Bell, CEO of Green Futures, a firm that helps British companies provide environmentally friendly services around the globe, is concerned with a brewing construction scandal in Indonesia. An earthquake destroyed over 500 homes, many built to weather natural disasters after the Boxing Day Tsunami. Fingers point at the construction company Axiom, with claims of corruption and bribes involving her former spouse's company Bell Consulting. She asks her daughter Jennifer to visit her father George, who she and her mom have not seen in over a decade since he deserted both of them, to learn the truth using their MBA program as a means to get inside.

Jennifer does not like the idea of spying on anyone, let alone her father, but her mom plays on her conscience so she reluctantly agrees. However, nothing seems right as she tries to avoid her dad, digs for dirt on his company, and meets and falls in love with lecturer Daniel Peterson.

Using the environment as an underlying issue, LEARNING CURVES is an interesting boardroom romance with two other couples augmenting the relationship between the lead pair. Harriet and George are intriguing support players, who stubbornly blame the other for the end of their marriage, while their offspring learns a lot more than she bargained for when she joined the Bell Consulting MBA program. Gemma Townley provides a deep character driven tale of romance in the world of big business.