Risks

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

You might not take to Lynn Ann Loomis right away, not everyone does. After all, you wouldn’t expect a woman described as having “the biggest balls on the Street” to have an army of adoring fans. But then, how many women are able to take over their dead daddy’s small-town insurance agency at the age of eighteen and outface all the doubters in Elliott, Missouri, to make a go of it? How many have the courage to leave a beery good ol’ boy husband for – of all frightening places – New York? Landing in New York with two small children, a few dollars, and the business card of a fast-talker encountered at a conference in Chicago, Lynn Ann begins her climb to the top of the Street – the high-powered national insurance giants. She’s going to be a winner, no ifs about it. But when there’s a winner, there are also losers. “The daughter has the rep of being a slut,” says one of the teachers at the sixth or seventh school Lynn Ann’s children are enrolled in. And the son? “Very quiet. Kiss-ass quiet. A time bomb.” Lynn Ann says everything is fine. It’s what the psychologists call denial. And then Beth Schaffner arrives in their reluctant lives, a fairy godmother disguised as a guidance counselor, and with problems of her own. More through her generously given friendship than through her profession, she begins to change the way they see the world. But not before they all survive a trial by fire.

345 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1989

About the author

Margaret Wander Bonanno was an American science fiction writer, ghost writer and small press publisher. She was born in New York City. She wrote seven Star Trek novels, several science fiction novels set in her own worlds, including The Others, a collaborative novel with Nichelle Nichols, a biography, and other works.