Polly Courtney - author of City-based novel Golden Handcuffs & Marta's story, Poles Apart

"This could've been

written about me. If

you've ever been in

banking, law,

accountancy or

consultancy, or if

(especially if) you're

considering going into

them, you have to read

this book!"

Amazon user

"A thought provoking

work which begs the

question, are golden

handshakes really as

glittering as they

seem?"

CityLife

"There hasn't been

anything like this since

Liar's Poker by Michael

Lewis back in the

1980s. I'd recommend

this to anyone,

including those who

have never worked in

the city and don't

intend to! A refreshing

read by a talented new

writer."

Amazon user

"Hurrah for Polly

Courtney! Finally, a

book about twenty-

somethings, for

twenty-somethings.

And a book where the

heroine cares more

about her career than

her makeup. Brilliant

debut novel!"

Amazon user

Stats on the City

Two million people

commute into the city

each day, a large

number of whom are

intelligent, ambitious

twenty-something

year-olds with highly-

paid jobs in the City,

yet according to survey

results, 93% of them

want out.

The report, by HR

consultancy Chiumento,

shows that

discontentment is

running high in the City.

Barely a day goes by

without a newspaper or

magazine article about

the Square Mile. If it’s

not an eight million

pound sexual

harassment case, it’s

the state of London’s

burnt-out workers in

their ‘white collar

sweatshops’.

Women now outnumber

men by 52,000 among

Londoners in their

twenties – a trend that

is replicated in other

cities all over the world.

They are graduating in

greater numbers than

ever before, and

increasingly taking on

work in professions

historically dominated

by men.

But what's it like to be

a woman in a man's

world? Does it really

make a difference?

Find out by reading

Golden Handcuffs.

Golden Handcuffs

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‘My daughter’s an investment banker,’ Abby’s mum tells all her friends. ‘She works in stocks and shares!’

Everyone knows about the Square Mile. Everyone’s got a child, a friend or a neighbour who works in the City. The six-figure bonuses and ‘golden hellos’ are no secret, and nor are the hundred-hour weeks, the high-pressure deals or the regular rounds of redundancies. It’s a cut-throat world – everyone knows that.

But do they know what it’s like for the thousands of fresh-faced young graduates who pour into the City each year? Do they know what it’s like to get woken up at three in the morning by a taxi outside your window, ready to haul you back into the office? What it’s like to feel guilty for sloping off to the gym at nine o’clock at night? To realise that your PC has become your closest friend?

Written in a way that is cynical and entertaining, Golden Handcuffs follows two ‘high-flyers’ through their first year in the City. It is based on the writer’s experiences at a large American investment bank in London, and reveals a world that doesn’t quite match up with the fast-paced, exhilarating one that was painted so enticingly on the undergraduate milk-round.

Synopsis

Abby and Mike have achieved the impossible. Having spent the past three years cultivating perfect CVs – having played, danced, raced and captained their way to the tops of their respective year groups – they have landed themselves with graduate jobs at one of the most prestigious firms in the city: Cray McKinley.

The eight thousand-pound ‘golden hellos’ serve as pocket money for their summer-long stay in New York, where the graduates get their first taste of the glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle to come. They’re bright, they’re ambitious, they’re keen, and they’re ready to take on the world.

For Abby at least, it’s not as easy as she’d anticipated. Try as she might, she just can’t seem to earn people’s respect. Her feeling of uselessness is compounded by the fact that wheezing, spluttering Archie Dickinson assumes her to be his PA, and when Mike suddenly pops up in her department, Abby feels even smaller as he soars straight to the top of the class. There is instant hostility between Abby and Mike – laced with a conflicting sexual attraction.

The novelty of free dinners and cab rides home soon wears off, and Mike finds himself wondering where the ‘play’ element to this ‘work hard, play hard’ regime comes in. His tiresome routine is punctuated by angry outbursts from the heart-attack-prone office bully, Stuart Mackins – a man known for throwing chairs at junior analysts – and the occasional trip to a lap-dancing club. It’s reasonable, he reckons, as lifestyles go, but it’s certainly not the go-getting one they told him about when he applied for the job.

The electricity between Abby and Mike is heightened by fact that they sit six feet apart in the office, and are under constant scrutiny from their colleagues. Mixing business with pleasure is never a good idea is the advice Mike receives from the other first-years during a late-night Redbull session. They’re probably right, of course, but they don’t know the full story. And being ‘just good friends’ with Abby Turner is proving harder than Mike is willing to let on.

It’s only when the young bankers get despatched up to Cambridge to convince naïve undergraduates of the fulfilling nature of their work that Abby realises: the system is a sham. She bought all this bullshit two years ago, and now she’s feeding it to the next batch of suckers whose souls and personalities are about to be siphoned off, just as hers have been.

Of course, there’s always the option to quit – once the eight thousand-pound golden handcuffs come off – but no one would be foolish enough to leave Cray McKinley after only a year. That would be admitting defeat, wouldn’t it? And nobody wants to look like a loser in the City…

Golden Handcuffs is about ambition, resilience and shattered dreams. It is about two young people starting out in the world – a world they are told is ‘their oyster’ – and their gradual realisation of what it means to sell their souls to the City.