Fast Women

Author: Jennifer Crusie

Eleanor "Nell" Dysart is trying to rebuild her life after her divorce from her husband of 20+ years. A year and a half later he's married to a younger woman who's taking over her role in the insurance agency they built together and Nell starts to realize that she's spent a year and a half in a numb sort of haze. Now she's gotten a job as a secretary for McKenna Investigations on a recommendation from her former brother-in-law and her life is suddenly livelier than it's ever been. She's almost slept with a client's husband, had a one night stand with Riley McKenna (one of her bosses), wrecked her ex-husband's office, forced the embezzling ex-secretary to give back the money, stolen a dog and that's just her first week there! The only problem with the job is her boss, Gabe McKenna, and his my-way-or-the-highway attitude. All she wants to do is make the office look nice and keep things running smoothly, but he fights her at every turn and she's be lying if she said it didn't make her kind of hot.

Gabe McKenna likes things the way they are and he does not like change. When he agrees to give Nell a temporary job as a favor to an important client, he knows she's going to be trouble, but how much damage can she do in 6 weeks? Unfortunately, while wreaking havoc in his office, Nell's discovered that the secretary she was temping for has been forging company checks and stealing from petty cash. He's going to have to take her on permanently despite the fact that he's had to talk her out of legal trouble twice and she's broken all three of the companies rules in her first week there! He doesn't need this on top of the week from hell he's been having. His ex-wife, whom he's been sleeping with despite the fact that they've been divorced for 10 years, has cut him off and decided to see the world. His 19 year old daughter wants to trek through Europe instead of going to college, which he's already paid for the first semester of. Their top client is being blackmailed, possibly by their ex-secretary, and Gabe's own father may have helped cover up a murder. Now she's renovating his office and changing everything against his wishes. If only his life would go back to the way it used to be before Nell walked through his door. If Nell would only stop trying to run his business. If he could only decide whether to strangle her or kiss her.


This is one of my favorite Crusie books. Not my absolute favorite, but it's up there. It's because Gabe and Riley McKenna are such great characters. They're both really good guys and watching them struggle with the ladies they were for was enjoyable. I wasn't crazy about Nell. My beef with Nell was that she kept trying to turn Gabe in to her ex-husband. She hated her ex-husband for being weak, for letting her run everything while pretending he was doing it all and she was just incidental to their success. She projected the issues she had with her ex on to Gabe. She was hired as a secretary, but she changed everything about the office to suit her despite his objections and then then she got angry when he didn't appreciate it. If she had pulled the crap she did on anyone else she would have been fired that first week. She didn't know how to just be an employee and then she started sleeping with Gabe and because of the patterns she's developed with her ex, she thought that gave her say in the business. She kept comparing Gabe to her ex despite the fact that they were nothing alike, something even her best friends kept pointing out, and she put the blame for their conflict on Gabe and his stubborn attitude when she was sooooooo in the wrong. I liked her friend Suze much better and I loved the interplay between her and Riley. I'm definitely rooting for them. I would also love to know what happened with Margie.