Private Lines

In this business thriller, Tyler is a global alliance manager for a huge international telecom company, which keeps him traveling constantly. While he’s in France to broker a fairly straightforward deal with FranceFon, he meets their alliance manager, Delphine, with whom he has instant chemistry, but she is reluctant to close on a deal that was all but done before she came on board. They get closer, and when he presses about her reluctance, she reveals that GlobeAll, Tyler’s company, is engaged in financial improprieties with which she doesn’t want FranceFon associated. This revelation sends Tyler into a spiral of self-doubt, especially because it was his mentor, Nick, who brokered the crooked deal. Meanwhile, Carly, a Milwaukee-based GlobeAll account manager, is struggling with an ailing mother, a demanding boss, and an emotionally unavailable lover. Carly and Tyler meet via video conference, and they become captivated with each other. As both are soul searching while GlobeAll starts to crumble, they start to reevaluate their lives. Gates remarkably manages to make the intricacies of telecommunications interesting to laypeople. That said, the romantic tension between Tyler and Carly falls flat because the obstacles between them aren’t emphasized enough, nor does his attraction to Delphine seem like much of an impediment. Readers will find themselves more intrigued by the shadowy Department of Defense deals laying the groundwork for the Iraq invasion than by the romantic entanglements of the leads. [em](BookLife) [/em]