The cost of doing business

the long version

"Diane Morris, 33, a divorced single parent competing in a male-dominated work environment, is the first-person narrator of The Cost of Doing Business. It is a story of the adventures, discoveries, and triumphs of a contemporary woman struggling to balance work and home responsibilities.". "Diane, employed by a major oil company, drives Louisiana's rural highways to negotiate oil-drilling rights with a feisty widow, a black farmer and his sons, and a self-important autocrat, all neighboring landowners and all embroiled in a controversy that threatens to frustrate Diane's efforts. There is intrigue and intimidation, mystery and arson as she works to resolve their dispute over the boundary lines of their properties, potentially rich in oil.". "At home, Diane deals with the reappearance and unwanted attentions of her ex-husband, Ray, and the needs of her precocious twelve-year-old son, Tim, and her recently widowed father. While her father and son read the ancient heroic Greek myths together, Diane awakens to what it means to be a twenty-first-century hero."--BOOK JACKET.