Falling Apart by Emma Louise
Lilac Everything is an incredibly important album in regard to this novel; it’s even referenced in the dedication.
To me, the song Falling Apart feels like 3am at the jazz club. The slow, eddying sadness and defeat is palpable. This is the state we find our main character, Jess Cole at the beginning of Risky Business. She’s falling apart, and she’s slowly unravelling throughout the entire story until she takes her fate into her own hands. The album was created by Emma Louise, who was stifled by the limitations of her own range. At the end of the album’s production, she decided to pitch her voice down to resemble a man’s and found a new creative avenue for self-expression. Lyrics took on new meaning, the nuances of her voice became more obvious, and it created a piece of art beyond itself.
I find exploring the concept of gender performance and expectations really interesting and I love how this musical choice reflects the themes of Risky Business; Jess experiencing the limitations of her own gender, attempting but failing to succeed as a woman in a man’s world. She is only able to open doors and fully realize her ambition when she can act through the guise of a man (her brother Spencer).
David by Lorde
A hard song to listen to in the context of his story. We find out Jess has gone through a trauma that too many women are familiar with. Much like the statue of David, which Lorde refers to in the song, Jess was built in the image of the men around her. Her brother, her employers, her boyfriend, her aggressor, her father. But she is not treated the same as them; because she is a woman, she is always considered less than. During the climax of the story, Jess has to rebuild herself away from this image. Breaking through the barriers that the men in her life have placed around her. Lorde exemplifies this at the song’s peak with the line ‘I don’t belong to anyone.’
Woman by Mumford and Sons
This is a song that reflects Oliver Kavanaugh's POV as he falls in love with Jess, and it was the very first song I added to my official Risky Business playlist. He knows she’s holding back and is all the more fascinated because of it. Of course, he could never guess the reality of her plan, and however she tries to fight it, she keeps making her way back to him. Oliver has his own demons and sees their match in her. He possesses a yearning to know her wholeheartedly; she inspires him, confuses him and intrigues him.
Forgive Myself by Griff is a very on-the-nose inspiration. She talks about giving her love to the wrong person, and how everything that happened because of that felt like her fault. again, also about trying again and moving on. Obviously, Jess’s secret identity is a huge reason not to open up to the prospect of love with Oliver, but she uses it as an excuse and a crutch to continue hiding her heart. But after a while, the iron bars protecting her heart from another round of pain start to feel a lot more like a cage. Things went terribly in her past relationship. Can she stop blaming herself and open herself up to the risk of love again?
Shapeshifting on a Saturday Night by Avery Cochrane
The joyous feeling of shedding your self-image for a night. The freedom Jess feels when she removes her baggage, history and expectations. The night she lets go of everything standing in her way and it just so happens to be the moment she meets the future love of her life. Coincidence? I think not!
A Whip-Smart Romantic Comedy of Mistaken Identities and Risky Ventures in the Tech World
In this whip-smart romance, a woman desperate to keep her start-up afloat is forced to pose as her brother’s assistant during a tech competition, hoping a male-led company will be taken more seriously, only to find her secret identity compromised when she has a hot one-night stand with the head of the competition’s assistant.
When tech founder Jess Cole is struggling to gain funding for her company, she begins to wonder if it’s because she’s a woman in the male-dominated tech industry—especially due to a former incident and subsequent NDA that’s been following her for years. In an act of financial desperation, she applies to a competition for start-ups using her twin brother Spencer’s name, pretending to be a man. To her surprise, it works! As though she’s discovered the ultimate industry cheat code, Jess and Spencer are invited into the exclusive world of Tech Rumble, an annual innovation competition hosted on the world’s stage by tech darling Dominic Orsino.
Spencer, an out-of-work actor, must pretend to be the CEO, and Jess must become his loyal “assistant,” Violet. Spencer is thrust into the limelight; charming Dominic and the competition judges but making promises Jess can’t keep—or afford.
“Violet” is introduced to the handsome Oliver, a fellow assistant who shows her how to let her hair down and enjoy life outside the pressures of her job. But she soon discovers falling for Oliver is riskier than any mistake Spencer has made.
During wild nights with Oliver in Rome, secret rendezvous in Paris, and luxurious parties in Vienna, Jess must navigate the competition and try to stay on top of her lies, especially when someone from her past comes sniffing around, putting her ruse at risk.
A nod to the early 2000s Shakespeare adaptations, this twist on The Twelfth Night is a fast-paced steamy ride from start to finish!
Tropes:
- meet cute
- one-night stand turns to more
- heroine in disguise
- mistaken identity
Romance Comedy | Women's Fiction [ Avon, On Sale: February 3, 2026, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063383692 / eISBN: 9780063383685 ]
Annabelle grew up writing stories in the depths of theBritish countryside. After achieving a degree in creativewriting she spent most of her twenties working withbrands and start-ups in London and New York.
Nowadays, if she isn’t spending time writing, you canalmost always find her obsessing over niche internetdrama, practicing her fencing parry or mooching aroundvintage fairs and flea markets with her
husband and two dachshunds, Gruffalo and Gryffin.
The Launch Date is Annabelle’s debut novel, inspired by her time working in the wild world of dating apps.
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