Complications
Four interns, one partner, and the mother between them
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Vivienne Holloway has been reading rooms since she was old enough to stand in them. This one has a complication she didn’t put in her file. Contemporary novel · 395 pages · Adult content BUY FROM INGRAMSPARKAMAZONKOBOREAD THE OPENINGTABLE OF CONTENTS Paperback ISBN 978-1-972810-65-1 · ebook ISBN 978-1-972810-66-8 |
| 395Pages | 4Interns | 1Firm | 1Complication |
You could feel the floor dropping out from under you and still look like you were standing on solid ground.
From the novel
Vivienne Holloway arrives at a high-end Manhattan law firm as one of four interns competing for a single permanent job. She’s sharp, controlled, and practiced at reading a room before her expression moves, a skill she learned surviving her mother.
What none of her rivals know, and what she doesn’t see at first, is the complication she carries into the building: her connection to one of the firm’s partners, and the mother in the background who has never stopped arranging the lives around her. A quiet, adult story about ambition, attraction, self-protection, and the things people choose not to say.
For readers of literary contemporary fiction and slow-burn workplace drama.
| Detail | Answer |
|---|---|
| Genre | Contemporary drama leaning toward a restrained, psychological romance |
| Setting | Hargrove, Vance and Associates, a high-end Manhattan law firm |
| Main character | Vivienne Holloway, one of four interns competing for one job |
| Length | 395 pages |
| Series | Stands alone; part of the Wanting collection |
| Content | Adult readers; mature situations and language |
| For readers of | Literary contemporary fiction and slow-burn workplace drama |
How does Complications open?
First Day
The elevator opened on the fourteenth floor and Vivienne Holloway stepped out looking like she belonged there.
She didn’t, yet. But she had been performing belonging since she was sixteen, standing in her mother’s kitchen handing Christine tissues while Christine cried beautiful, practiced tears about a relationship that had ended because Christine had needed it to end. Vivienne had stood there and nodded and made the right sounds, and somewhere between the first tissue and the fourth she had learned a useful thing.
You could feel the floor dropping out from under you and still look like you were standing on solid ground. You just had to decide which one mattered more.
She had been making that decision ever since.
The offices of Hargrove, Vance and Associates smelled like expensive coffee and old paper and an ambition that had somewhere to put itself. Cold air came from the vents, and under the old smells ran the faint chemical one of new carpet, charcoal gray and thick enough to swallow sound. Somewhere a printer ran, steady and periodic, like a pulse.
Light came through floor-to-ceiling windows on the east wall and fell in long pale strips across the open associate area. Someone had taped a card to the window ledge at the far end, a birthday card, from the look of it, left there long enough to curl at the edges. No one had taken it down. The office had been designed to make you feel like your work mattered.
She caught her reflection in the glass as she crossed, a half-second of it. The left shoulder of her jacket sat slightly off, as it always did when she carried her bag on that side; it was the thing she fixed in lobby mirrors. She did not stop to fix it.
Three people were already waiting near reception. She read them as she read every room, fast and systematic, her attention moving before her expression did.
The first one stood up the moment she walked in.
He was good-looking in an obvious way, tall with broad shoulders and a smile that knew it was working. He crossed the room before she’d taken three steps and put out his hand like he was closing a deal.
“Tyler Marsh,” he said. “Columbia Law. You’re Holloway, right? They sent us the cohort bios.”
► Behind the Book: Complications
How this one got written, what went wrong, and what got cut.
Questions readers ask
A contemporary drama set in a high-end Manhattan law firm. It’s a quiet, character-driven story about four interns competing for a job, and it leans toward romance, though a restrained and psychological one.
It stands alone, and it sits in the Wanting collection of books about desire, attraction, and the things people reach for.
Yes. The novel is written for adult readers and includes mature situations and language.
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She reads every room she walks into
This is the one she didn’t see coming.
BUY FROM INGRAMSPARKAMAZONKOBOREAD THE OPENINGTABLE OF CONTENTS
Paperback and ebook.
First Day
Complications
The elevator opened on the fourteenth floor and Vivienne Holloway stepped out looking like she belonged there.
She didn’t, yet. But she had been performing belonging since she was sixteen, standing in her mother’s kitchen handing Christine tissues while Christine cried beautiful, practiced tears about a relationship that had ended because Christine had needed it to end. Vivienne had stood there and nodded and made the right sounds, and somewhere between the first tissue and the fourth she had learned a useful thing.
You could feel the floor dropping out from under you and still look like you were standing on solid ground. You just had to decide which one mattered more.
She had been making that decision ever since.
The offices of Hargrove, Vance and Associates smelled like expensive coffee and old paper and an ambition that had somewhere to put itself. Cold air came from the vents, and under the old smells ran the faint chemical one of new carpet, charcoal gray and thick enough to swallow sound. Somewhere a printer ran, steady and periodic, like a pulse.
Light came through floor-to-ceiling windows on the east wall and fell in long pale strips across the open associate area. Someone had taped a card to the window ledge at the far end, a birthday card, from the look of it, left there long enough to curl at the edges. No one had taken it down. The office had been designed to make you feel like your work mattered.
She caught her reflection in the glass as she crossed, a half-second of it. The left shoulder of her jacket sat slightly off, as it always did when she carried her bag on that side; it was the thing she fixed in lobby mirrors. She did not stop to fix it.
Table of Contents
Complications
- First Day
- Reid’s World
- The Competition Sharpens
- Simone
- What She Learned
- The Fundraiser
- Christine Holloway
- Eight Weeks
- Cassidy, Before
- Vivienne, Before
- Assigned
- Simone, Week Six
- Daniel’s Brief
- The Office
- Pika
- The Incident
- Cassidy
- The Stakes
- Late
- Priya
- Simone, Week Ten
- The Drawer
- Whitmore
- Before
- Christine Calls
- Reid Managing
- The Presentation
- The Key
- Almost
- The Garfield Settlement
- Giving In
- Daylight
- Reid Goes
- Tyler
- Ordinary
- Owen Teller
- The Argument
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- Christine Reappears
- Cassidy Visits
- Connecticut
- The Inside of It
- The Mirror
- Christine Engineers It
- The Morning
- Seven Forty-Three
- Ice
- The Weight of It
- Reid Figures It Out
- Christine’s Dilemma
- The Second Week
- Reid, Week Two
- The Cost
- The Closing
- Christine’s Choice
- Christine, After the Retraction
- The Call
- I Love You
- Waiting
- The Retraction Problem
- The Redirect
- Not Knowing
- Daniel, Before
- Simone, After the Call
- The Bar
- His Door
- Thomas
- Sisters
- The Hospital
- Daniel
- Priya, After
- The Associate
- Christine
- Simone, After
- Epilogue