Workhorse by Caroline Palmer
Published by Flatiron Books
Publication date: October 14, 2025
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Historical, New Adult, fashion
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Clo Harmon is a 25-year-old assistant at a fashion magazine. She’s a workhorse—eager, bright, hardworking, but with no fashion pedigree. Meaning she will never achieve her dream of being an editor because those jobs only go to the show horses—wealthy, skinny girls with Ivy League degrees and all the right connections. What’s an ambitious, but unconnected woman to do? In Workhorse author Caroline Palmer ignores the easy paths to follow Clo on her circuitous journey towards her goal.
I expected a Devil Wears Prada fish-out-of-water story, but Workhorse doesn’t fit into any of the tropes the premise would suggest. Clo quickly identifies Davis Lawrence, a wealthy dilettante, as the assistant she needs to befriend in order to succeed. She spends almost as much time making Davis’s life easier as she does her boss. It pays off, but while Clo does infiltrate Davis’ life to an incredible extent this is not a mystery thriller about one wanting the other’s life.
No matter where it seemed this story was going to go it didn’t. Instead of fluff, it’s a fully fleshed out portrait of a deeply unhappy outsider who just wants to be in. And yet, for every moment of sympathy felt for someone with such low self-esteem there was another that gave her a Thomas Ripley vibe. She’s not just striving and a little bit pathetic, she’s also unexpected and calculating. The same depth can be applied to the rest of Workhorse’s characters. There’s a long game being played beneath the surface veneer of the worlds of fashion and wealth.
By the time the last stiletto has dropped and the last sequin settled, Clo has gone from outsider to one of the old guard. Yet she seems no closer to her goals, making Workhorse less dishy tale than twisted psychological study, but with better clothes and more money. It was not at all what I expected, but it kept me entertained.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review.*
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