I have begun writing my next book, which features a Vice President of Human Resources in a startup as the heroine. Her love interest is a man ten years her junior (yes, ladies and gents, it’s a romance, and she’s entitled to her fun and games).
As per usual in my stories, there will be a subplot involving a financial scam that entangles our two love birds. They are determined to uncover the truth, despite having multiple reasons not to.
Today I’d like to tell you a little about it.
I never try to invent a scam.
Why would I, when other people have gone to such trouble to think of it, act on it, and get caught for it? It would be a sheer waste not to utilize all their hard work.
In this upcoming book, I wanted to avoid purely focusing on financial markets and instead explore prevalent scams within companies that are not publicly listed or subject to frequent external reviews, thus lacking transparency.
In other words - startups.
Israel has a vibrant startup industry (we’re not called “Startup Nation” for nothing), and it makes sense to write about it. But I actually found my story in good old Wall Street.
A news article caught my eye:
A young woman, a founder of a college financial platform, lied about her startup’s financial data. What tickled me was that JP Morgan got, excuse the language, royally screwed here.
I mean, come on, this is JPMorgan! They’re expected to perform due diligence in their sleep. And yet, they fell for it! This incident speaks more to JP Morgan's greed than to the young startup manager who got ensnared in her own web of promises.
I moved the story to Israel because this could have happened in any subscription-based startup here, (and probably did, except I had never gotten to hear of it).
Naturally, there will be romance. And drama. Sexual tension will abound and steamy scenes will sprout (in and around the office, I'm still scouting for locations).
And for the first time in one of my books, the guy will have tattoos - I'm very excited about this.