Richly drawn and darkly comedic, Workhorse is an astonishing portrait of envy and ambition set against the glamor and privilege of media and high society in New York City at its height. 

The year is 2001, and editorial assistant Clodagh “Clo” Harmon wants nothing more than to rise through the ranks at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine. There’s just one problem: she doesn’t have the right pedigree. Instead, Clo is a “workhorse” surrounded by beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected “show horses” who get ahead without effort, including her beguiling cubicle-mate Davis Lawrence, the well-bred daughter of a beloved, but fading, Broadway actress. Harry Wood, Davis’s boarding school classmate and a reporter with visions of his own media empire, might be Clo’s ally in gaming the system—or he might be the only thing standing between Clo and her rightful place at the top.

In a thrilling career punctuated by moments of high absurdity and devastating reversals of fortune, Clo wades across boundaries, taking ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the important person she wants to be within the confines of a world where female ambition remains cloaked. But who really is Clo underneath all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners—and who are we if we share her desires?

Hilarious and insightful, Caroline Palmer’s debut novel is a brilliant portrayal of what it means to be in thrall to wealth, beauty and influence and the outrageous sacrifices women must make for the sake of success.