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Money Matters: A Novel

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Finalist for the American Fiction Awards in Best New Fiction She's poor and naïve. They're rich and dangerous. At once a painful coming-of-age novel, an exciting amateur sleuth tale and an intriguing narrative involving social issues (immigration and wealth disparity), Money Matters has mystery at its core. This emotionally charged debut novel is firmly embedded in Los Angeles culture over the 2010 mid-term election. Jenny, the 27-year-old inexperienced protagonist, faced with the tragic disappearance of a friend, is forced to take on financial tycoons, corrupt politicians and the treacherous Baja drug cartel in her search to uncover the truth. Jenny’s investigation takes her into the twilight world of undocumented immigrants, which leads her to seek the help of the handsome director of an immigrant rights organization to whom she is strongly attracted. But will the deadly enmity of the rich and powerful thwart her search and end her budding romance?

238 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2019

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About the author

Brian Finney

22 books8 followers
Brian Finney is a prize-winning writer and professor emeritus in English literature. Born in London, he obtained a BA (hons) in English and Philosophy at Reading University and a PhD on D. H. Lawrence’s shorter fiction at University of London, where he taught literature and arranged extra-mural courses in the arts from 1964 to 1987. After immigrating to Southern California he taught at UC Riverside, UCLA, the University of Southern California ad California State University Long Beach.

He has published eight books. His second book, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography, was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for non-fiction that year. It was also voted one of the best three books of the year by Philip Toynbee in the Observer. He went on to publish, among others, The Inner I, a pioneering study of British literary autobiography, and a widely cited book about British fiction in the eighties and nineties, English Fiction Since 1984. In 2011 he published on Amazon Terrorized: How the War on Terror Affected American Culture and Society. He has also edited three editions of D. H. Lawrence’s work, and published a range of essays and reviews in various journals and newspapers.

In August 2019 he published his first novel, Money Matters, in which an inexperienced young woman is persuaded to search for a woman who has disappeared and comes up against the powerful forces of big money, politics and a drug cartel. By the end of her search she has become a different person. This book is a Finalist in the 2019 Best American Fiction Awards. His second novel, Dangerous Conjectures, set in the Bay Area in the opening months of 2020 when the pandemic was spreading,, was published in 2021. His third novel, Only the Rich, is forthcoming in 2023.

Brian Finney is married and lives in Venice, California.

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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Teo Acr.
47 reviews5 followers
September 14, 2019
Wow, what a story! What a thrilling experience, filled with fast paced action, a hint of romance and an amazing life changing journey!

From the beginning, we can relate to the protagonist, who seems to be at a crossroads in her life, not content with herself, spinning around in circles inside the same old story, and yet never finding the courage to step up and speak up. Haven’t we all experienced that, at some point in our lives? A little bit too cozy in our small comfort zone, afraid of facing the wonders and, inevitably, the dangers of a life worth living….

Well, for Jenny is a lot harder to find the courage, constantly living in the shadow (and in the apartment) of her sister - a super modern, super sexy, collagen filled and silicon enhanced Barbie, which inherited her fierce attitude from her father. The two sisters have very different views on life, which often causes them to fight about everything.

But when a friend entrusts Jenny with finding the truth about a colleague, that somehow seems to awaken her hidden resources and she starts to stand up for herself, starting with leaving Gary. This is the first sign of her independence and she wants more, enjoying a new and exciting high. She seems to be waking up from a long and numbing slumber and soon is forced to confront the powerful forces that are swirling around her - the world of the rich and powerful.

She experiences a hurtful truth, the fact that everybody can be easily dismissed as nothing and can be already forgotten even before leaving the building. With that painful realization in mind, she embarks on a journey of self discovery and she finds hidden strengths inside herself, such as standing up to three powerful and vicious men – she, a part time flower girl.

Well, don’t we all know it – only after hitting rock bottom you are able to rise again, step out of your comfort zone and change your life around.

If you are looking for an amazing book that will keep you glued to the page all weekend, Money Matters by Brian Finney is the one!
1 review
August 30, 2019
MONEY MATTERS by Brian Finney is a subtle and exciting novel set in Southern California. It evokes the contrasts between great wealth and fearful poverty, political/social corruption and decency, prejudice and the struggle for justice, greed and generosity, group-think and courage. Succinctly told from the viewpoint of young, beautiful Jenny, the story accelerates as she moves from habitually passive introspection to quick-witted, vibrant action in the worlds of family, work, personal responsibility, love and sex. Intercut and integral to her story is Miguel, an illegal immigrant from Mexico whom she never meets but whose life alters her own.
11 reviews
September 8, 2019
Brian Finney creates a mystery novel that hooks the reader from the opening chapter in Money Matters. Jenny Carter is 27-year-old living with sister in Venice, California after being evicted from her apartment. The two sisters are complete opposite as Tricia is obsessed with money and status and Jenny is more passive and believes in helping others. It’s through her willingness to put others before herself that finds her in the mix of corrupt politics, social matters, and dangerous cartel business when her friend Felicia comes to her and asks her to look into finding a missing friend.
Finney creates a protagonist that is kind, compassionate and as a strong sense to help those in trouble. The story was a quick read as you dive deeper into Jenny’s world and that of current events that are going on such as immigration rights. The characters and dialogue felt natural and were developed nicely throughout the story. If you’re a mystery lover and in need of a good novel that keep you on your toes this is the book for you. I’m definitely going to be looking into more novels from the author as I found the book to be a page turner in excitement and thrills.
Profile Image for Rod Raglin.
Author 35 books28 followers
October 13, 2019
In Money Matters, writing doesn’t.

Jenny and Tricia Carter are sisters, but all they have in common are their parents.
At twenty-seven, Jenny has a deadbeat boyfriend and barely gets by with poorly paid part-time jobs. For Tricia, older by two years and a successful realtor, money comes above everything else.
Jenny has been renting the extra bedroom in Tricia’s Venice, California condo since she got evicted from her low-rent studio a couple of years ago. Tricia never misses an opportunity to criticize her sister for the poor choices she makes. Jenny pretty much deserves it.
One of Jenny’s part-time jobs is caring for the indoor plants of a mega-wealthy hedge fund manager, Todd Granger. When Felicia, his housekeeper, tells Jenny she’s concerned Susan, Todd’s live-in girlfriend has gone missing, Jenny says she’ll look into it.
Jenny has no luck tracing Susan, but Felicia has discovered Todd’s house is bugged and gives her a secure digital card she found. The SD card is from Total Surveillance, a company Jenny has another part-time job with reviewing surveillance tapes.
Jenny does some digging at Total Surveillance and comes up with more tapes from Todd’s house that suggest he’s laundering cartel drug money through his hedge fund as well as using some of it to finance his brother’s anti-immigrant focused campaign for governor.
This has the elements of an interesting novel and might have been in the hands of an author better versed in the craft.
This is Brian Finney’s first work of fiction and its apparent right from the start when he begins the narrative with backstory rather than the inciting incident.
It’s not that the writing is bad; there are no grammatical errors; it’s just painfully amateurish.
The author is infatuated with adverbs and attaches them to almost every bit of dialogue, presumably to make sure the reader understands the delivery. With good writing, the reader knows how the dialogue is delivered because of previous action, characterization and setting.
The story is filled with redundancies, a common mistake of beginners who want to make sure the reader “gets it.” The text is also riddled with redundant modifiers like “shouts angrily”, “shouts back in a temper”, “shoves Miguel roughly,” “lacks firm definition”.
Characters in Money Matters are one dimensional with good and evil delineated almost exclusively by wealth and ethnic origin. Everyone white is at best indifferent and at worst a bigot. If you’re successful, you’re self-centered, materialistic, greedy and just plain nasty—like Tricia. If you’re powerful, you’re corrupt like Todd and his politician brother. For all the antagonists in Money Matters, the end justifies the means.
On the other hand, if you’re poor or struggling it’s because you’re kind, liberal and caring and in the case of this story, likely an illegal, undocumented Mexican.
With the introduction of every new character, the author gives you a detailed physical description including their wardrobe complete with designer names. This not only stalls the narrative but feels unnatural. Minimal physical description introduced through action allows the reader to fill in the blanks and further invests them in the story.
The plot stretches the suspension of disbelieve in a number of areas. The first is when Felicia, after trying unsuccessfully to contact Susan, visits her apartment.
“I went to her apartment in Palos Verdes, and it was no right. I could see through the window. All the plants were muertas. Plates broken on the kitchen floor.” … “No! No! The landlord told me she pays the rent. Is not right. Something is malo. It smell bad in there.”
Why doesn't Felicia call the 9-1-1 and tell police what she’s seen and what she suspects? She could do it anonymously.
The second instance is when Miguel, an undocumented immigrant, obstructs Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while they’re making an arrest and subsequently gets arrested himself. Does it make sense that he would intervene knowing how personally at risk he is?
Another is a telephone conversation where Todd arranges to launder cartel money through his hedge fund if the cartel makes a $100,000 donation to his brother’s political campaign. Then, Dan Granger, Todd’s brother and candidate for governor, instructs a campaign worker to open a bank account in a fictitious name and deposit the illegal contribution.
With so much at stake, you’d think they’d take at least a few precautions like not discussing the transaction over the telephone and not instructing an anonymous campaign worker to do something illegal.
The story only feels authentic when the author introduces subplots with secondary characters, Miguel’s detainment and deportation and the scenes with Jenny and Tricia’s parents including the announcement their mother has vascular dementia.
Developing the aforementioned scene could add a much-needed dimension to the characters of Jenny and Tricia and balance to the story as well. If Tricia were to step up and to pay for her mother’s long-term care, it would depict her as something other than avaricious and demonstrate that having a healthy bank account can be used for a worthwhile purpose.
Finney either is not up to this opportunity or misses it altogether. Instead, he has Tricia cut a cheque for a measly thousand dollars and writes the following tepid response for Jenney,
“I had never faced the obvious fact that my parents wouldn’t be around for the rest of my life. They were a fixture in my mind. I feel sort of uprooted.”
Considering the upbeat ending, I wonder if the author is aware of the insidious conflict of interest that has facilitated it.
Jenny has extorted a million-dollar donation from the drug cartel for the Coalition of Immigrant Rights run by her boyfriend, Eduardo. Some of this money will go to pay her salary in a new job he’s created for her, described as “…exposing the false information… to change the treatment of immigrants until we have enough votes to compel the government to change the present laws.”
Ironically, the cartel’s funds come in part from human smuggling which would mean her salary is being paid by the very thing she'll be employed to expose–human suffering and the exploitation of immigrants.
If only I could believe Finney was aware of this, it would make the novel almost worthwhile.

I received this book free from Reedsy Discovery in return for an honest review and a $5 Amazon Gift Card.
Profile Image for Meg.
Author 2 books84 followers
September 11, 2019
In Brian Finney's novel Money Matters, Jenny agrees to help her coworker look into a missing person. What she thinks will be a quick visit to a landlord eventually leads her to discover darker connections between Republican candidates, drug cartels, undocumented workers, and more.  The story is well-plotted, with plenty of moving pieces and different agendas. 

With a part-time gig watching surveillance tapes and another watering plants, Jenny's an unlikely sleuth. I felt like she took this challenge mostly because she was bored. But she stumbles into more information, and can't let it go. She keeps uncovering new layers and new connections, turning her look into a missing ex-girlfriend into a high-stakes international drama. As she investigates, Jenny discovers more strength in herself, too. 

 Selfishness and money motivate the antagonists to do horrible things, a realistic motive, although some of the villains were a little too mustache-twirlingly evil for me. Jenny -- and the reader -- could always tell who's good and who's evil, because there's not a lot of grey here. The plot really highlights the haves and have-nots in our society. Jenny, who's just getting by on part-time work, sees both the extreme wealth of CEOs and political candidates, and the constant financials struggles of Felicia, Miguel and other undocumented workers. Money is power here, with wealthy men able to make problems disappear, and undocumented workers powerless to get their full paychecks.  This doesn't just set the conflict in motion, it helps Jenny discover what she needs, too, and grow from being shruggy and accepting, to a young woman determining her own goals. 

At times, the characters are told, not shown, to the reader. For example, hard-working Felicia is described as "fiercely independent" more than once, but we only really see her asking Jenny for help and asking her what to do next.  Still, I laughed at the descriptions of slacker Gary, Jenny's "boyfriend" who really just wants to get stoned and play games. 

The final pages are a letter from a young man who was deported back to a country he can't remember. This brings the story back from an investigative adventure to a reminder of the very real human cost of deportation. 
8 reviews
September 7, 2019
Money Matters by Finney is a coming-of-age novel that explores the deep struggles and emotions experienced by people of distinctive backgrounds and cultures, such as two California-born sisters and several undocumented immigrants from Mexico. The novel evokes the contrast between different perspectives of success. The story revolves around a missing person’s case, but also explores the lifestyles of two sisters, Jenny and Tricia. The 27 years old, Jenny, believes that the fulfillment of life isn’t achieved through amassing a lot of wealth, despite her sister’s constant reminders that “money matters”. Jenny, unlike Tricia, believes that moral standards are essential in the realization of a better life. She is an opinionated person with a different view on political, career choices, and experience in general. Tricia is more money obsessed, and as a result, she could do anything without considering its morality. The disappearance of Jenny’s friend makes her take on financial tycoons, a drug cartel, and corrupt politicians in search of the truth. Jenny’s search lands her in political drama, bigotry.
The inclusion of the contemporary and relatable matters was a feature in the book that I really appreciated. For instance, the comparison of Tricia and Jenny’s outlook on issues such as career choice, life, politics, brought out the opposing sides of the same argument. The book also takes on the sociological problems and immigration and incorporates them in a suspense story that brings it to a beautiful conclusion. Money Matters by Brian is a novel worth reading particularly for readers interested in immigration issues.
44 reviews
September 13, 2019
Money Matters by Brian Finney.This book has a lot of twist and turns a great plot with lots of interesting characters Jenny Miguel Dan and so on,Jenny was trying to figure out why money matters or if it really does matter.her sister was always one about money which she really didn't like and didn't want to be like her sort of sister rivalry i say,she had to live with her until she found her way out,so along the way she was learning from politicians how money matterd she worked for him watering plants.This book is greatly written a wonderful plot twist a lot of mystery,love story and politics and immigration what more could you ask for in a novel.If you want to know why or how money matters please read this book for yourself highly recommended. A book you just can't put down til your finished reading it a fast read easy read great author a great plot twist and turns what can I say I loved reading this book Money Matters.
220 reviews2 followers
September 22, 2019
Wonderful!

This story is not one I expected but I am so glad I stumbled upon it. We are all children of immigrants, whether first, second, third generations of more and this is the heart-wrenching story of one such family. I highly recommend it to everyone!
7,822 reviews53 followers
December 22, 2020
Jenny and Tricia two sisters but complete opposites. Tricia wanting wealth, and status, while Jenny was one of helping others, When a friend comes telling of one that is missing Jenny helps. This political cover up, greed finding love. A story of Jenny coming into her own self, a good audio of how Jenny changed. Given audio for my voluntary review
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews