Hero

Fans of blazingly hot, anger-fueled, expense-account-funded hate sex will adore Young’s (Echoes of Scotland Street) story of personal drama among Boston’s financial elite. When Alexa Holland’s photographer employer is hired to do a magazine shoot featuring banking CEO Caine Carraway, she takes the opportunity to apologize to Caine for the way her father ruined his family. Caine is enraged, and Alexa gets fired. Still reeling, she’s even more shocked when Caine offers to hire her as his personal assistant. Caine’s entitled, exacting treatment of Alexa in the office, and his mercurial oscillation between crazed lust and cruel coldness after they embark on a secret affair, are mediated by the warmth of Caine’s flirty colleague Henry and the encouragement and baked goods of his adopted grandmother, Effie. Though the plot requires the protagonists to realize that they need not relive their ancestors’ mistakes, readers won’t much care about Alexa and Caine’s happy ending: their volatility is where the energy lies. Agent: Lauren Abamo, Dystel and Goderich Literary Management. (Feb.)