Maureen Sherryโs funny insider novel about a female Wall Street executive also trying to be a mother and a wife is a โcompulsively readableโฆcheekyโand at times, romanticโbattle-cry for any woman whoโs ever strived to have it all and been told by a man that she couldnโtโ (Entertainment Weekly).
Itโs 2008 and Isabelle, a thirty-something Wall Street executive, appears to have it all: the sprawling Upper West Side apartment; three healthy children; a handsome husband; and a job as managing director at a large investment bank. But her reality is something else. Her work environment resembles a frat party, her husband feels employment is beneath him, and the bulk of childcare logistics still fall in Belleโs already crowded lap.
Enter Henry, the former college fiancรฉ she never quite got over; now a hedge fund mogul. He becomes her largest client, and Belle gets to see the life she might have had with him. While Henry campaigns to win Belle back, the sexually harassed women in her office take action to improve their working conditions, and recruit a wary Belle into a secret โglass ceiling clubโ whose goal is to mellow the cowboy banking culture and get equal pay for their work. All along, Belle can sense the financial markets heading toward their soon-to-be historic crash and that something has to giveโand when it does, everything is going to change: her marriage, her career, her bank statement, and her colleaguesโ frat boy behavior.
Optioned by Reese Witherspoon who called it โsmart, biting, and honest,โ Opening Belle is โfunny, relevant, and often shockingโฆ.Even if your own life is far from a fairy tale, it will allow you to laugh, learn, and maybe even lean inโto hug your own family a little closer.โ (The Washington Post).