The story is most easily summed up with “It’s complicated, but there always is a silver lining”

Australian author Diana Simmonds has come up with a romance in a modern global setting. The story is most easily summed up with “It’s complicated, but there always is a silver lining”. At the beginning we meet young, investment hot-shot Amanda who in true Wall Street fashion lives only for her career and is in a rather dysfunctional relationship with a girlfriend (think Woody Allen for the neurotic part). Simmonds does describe the cut-throat, obsessive atmosphere of high finance quite thoroughly. Amanda’s only friend is Malcolm, an Australian, who brings into the picture his sister Clancy who, before the global banking crash, already sees the storm gathering over Wall Street but is ridiculed for her – as it seems – outlandish analysis.

When the financial crisis hits Amanda her whole world collapses and her relationship goes spectacularly down the drain: high lesbian drama, including domestic violence, lawyers and whatnot.

Reset: Amanda is visiting with Malcolm and Clancy in Australia. And the fishing village she finds herself in is the polar opposite of New York yet at the same time deeply affected by the financial crisis. She swims again with the financial sharks in Australia but manages to turn around her life and the lives of those she has come to care about. And it all comes down in a rather flashing end.

This book is more than an uncomplicated romance where black and white are easily discerned. The description of the nastiness of Wall Street and its denizens is spot-on and borders on noir, but good friends and good folk like Malcolm are the silver lining. And Australia is no virgin island either. Sharks are circling here as well, though common and community sense manage to prevail. The romance part is complicated too. One aspect which shines through in many places is a wicked, tongue-in-cheek humour.