WOMEN ARE THE FIERCEST CREATURES

The lives of three women intertwine in Portside, Washington, as a new social platform gets ready to launch its IPO.

Anna Sarnoff, 41, a one-time lawyer, was married to Jake Sarnoff for 15 years and had two sons with him while helping him build his social media company, Strangers. Before Jake married Anna, his college girlfriend, Samanta Flores-Walsh—one-time programmer, now a single mother and yoga-studio owner—helped him and his co-founder, Sai Chandra, hammer out the kinks in their original algorithm. And Jake’s young, beautiful, pregnant new wife, Jessica, an Instagram influencer and vet tech, has some ideas of her own that help the company. The story, told primarily from the points of view of Anna and Sam, examines the women's experiences with Jake and his superficial brand of feminism, the increasingly pregnant Jessica, the company, motherhood, their own careers and choices. As all this unfolds, the reader is already aware that Jessica and Jake’s daughter will be taken one night when she's 6 weeks old. Author Dunlop has created an intriguing world where women’s contributions might be overlooked and downplayed as the “natural” role of girlfriend, mother, or wife, but that doesn’t mean these contributions didn’t occur or aren’t worthy of merit and reward. Adoption, teen pregnancy, abandonment, the deaths of parents, love (and lies and affairs), divorce, bullying (both in-person and online), secrets, motherhood, intellectual property, poverty, and privilege all are addressed.

A well-written story that will leave readers thinking that women are indeed the fiercest creatures.