This Could Hurt: A Novel

For Rosa Guerrero, work is life. As chief of human resources at Ellery, a consumer research company, she wields her power carefully and treats her staff like family. When budget cuts force her to begin downsizing her department, the pain she feels is real. She understands how much a job means to Leo, Rob, Lucy, Kenny, Peter, Katie, and the others in her employ. Prepared to do what she must, Rosa is blindsided when serious health issues impair her ability to carry out her role. Her staff secretly step in to fill the gaps so her job is protected until she can retire. Their differing motivations, however, reveal a great deal about who they really are beneath the professional veneer–and Rosa, though compromised, uses her final act to bring out their best and reward those who deserve it most.

This is a workplace novel, and corporate processes and intricacies are given as much weight as the personal dramas of the employees. Everyone needs Ellery, just as everyone needs companionship and a sense of purpose; and life plays out against this corporate tableau. That future personal milestones are tracked via company org charts in the epilogue suggests that for certain professionals, work and life are one. For the characters in This Could Hurt, business is always personal.