Seven
Book Babe had posted more than five hundred reviews on the ReadAnon site. And when I returned to the office, I learned that my assistant, Blake, had already familiarized himself with them—not only tallying up the number of one-, two-, three-, four-, and five-star reviews the account had doled out, but paying close attention to Book Babe’s preferred genres, favorite books, and personal details disclosed in the reviews, including frequently used turns of phrase.
All this, plus he’d updated my website and walked Rosie, who, after greeting me briefly, was now sleeping peacefully under Blake’s desk, in the dog bed he’d bought her for Christmas. Even for the enthusiastic twenty-two-year-old I’d come to know and appreciate, that was a lot. When he presented me with a five-page printed document he described as“the profile of Book Babe I worked up,” I nearly asked him if he’d fallen off the energy drink wagon again. Instead, I said, “You think you can summarize this for me?”
“Sure.” Blake sat back down at his desk. “First of all,” he said, “I’m pretty sure Book Babe is a woman.”
“How do you know that?”
“She’s read a lot of books about pregnancy and she has very strong opinions about them,” he said. “She’ll complain about the books written by men, even if they’re doctors. She’ll say things like, ‘Obviously this dude’s never had to deal with swollen ankles.’ Which, you know, is a pretty good point, but also—”
“Connotes personal experience.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” I said. “When were these pregnancy reviews posted?”
“About three years ago.”
“So it’s possible she’s got a two- to three-year-old kid.”
“Exactly. Or she was just really into pregnancy books three years ago, for some other reason.”
“Right,” I said. “We never assume.”
“You taught me that.”
“Yes, I did,” I said.
He smiled.
I smiled back. “What else?” I said.
“Well, let’s see,” he said. “Book Babe likes inspirational stuff, self-help. She reviewed a holistic diet book I promoted on my Instagram account last year. She gave it three stars.”
“Was it a fair review?”
“I never read the book.”
“You just promoted it.”
He shrugged. “It had a nice cover.”
“What are her other reading preferences?”
“She loves books about Hollywood,” he said. “Autobiographies by old-time movie stars like Cary Grant and Cher. They usually get four or five stars, and a lot of times she uses the same words to describe them.” He squinted, as if the words were printed in a tiny font on the wall behind me. “Brave, revelatory, and aspirational.”
I tried to figure out if I’d ever heard someone lump Cary Grant and Cher into the same category. “This is all good, Blake,” I said. “Very thorough.”
“I worked really hard, Sunny.”
“I can tell.”
He beamed at me.
Blake was a constant surprise. When I’d hired him, I’d been wary of adding anyone to my staff, which consisted of Rosie and me (with Spike volunteering on a regular basis). But Blake needed a job. And to be honest, I’d felt sorry for him. He’d been through so much. I figured he’d work for me just long enough to get back on his feet again and find his true calling—maybe as a personal trainer or a hair model. But no. Beneath those luxuriant locks lurked a keen investigative mind.
“I’m guessing Book Babe is a romance reader,” I said.
