NEW YORK, September 2026 — For generations, women have been told different versions of the same story: security can be found through the right relationship, the right marriage, or proximity to someone else’s success.
The modern Prince Charming may no longer arrive on a white horse. He may work on Wall Street, run a company, own several homes, or have the kind of connections that can open doors most people never get close to.
But author Anastasia Bain asks a different question in her debut novel, Seeking Alpha:
When did another person’s success become a woman’s financial strategy?
Set against New York nightlife, Wall Street, and the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seeking Alpha follows Olga and Ariana, two women living far outside the traditional world of finance who suddenly find themselves close to information that could change their financial futures.
The pandemic becomes more than a backdrop to their story. As New York shuts down and the world they know changes almost overnight, the women are forced to confront how quickly jobs, income, relationships, and a sense of security can disappear.
That instability reflects one of the ideas at the heart of the novel: proximity to wealth is not the same as financial independence.
An allowance can feel like freedom. A wealthy partner can provide an extraordinary lifestyle. A beautiful home can feel like security. But when another person ultimately controls those things, access to wealth and ownership of one’s future are not necessarily the same.
In finance, “alpha” refers to performance beyond a benchmark—the ability to outperform the market. Bain originally chose the title because finance is woven throughout the story. But while writing the novel, the meaning of the word began to change.
“What if the alpha a woman is seeking isn’t a man at all?” Bain asks. “What if the goal was never to find your alpha, but to become it?”
The novel also challenges another familiar dynamic: women competing with one another for access to powerful men.
Olga and Ariana move through a world populated by wealthy and influential people, where money, connections, and privileged information circulate constantly. Yet Seeking Alpha turns the traditional fantasy around. Instead of asking which man in the room could change a woman’s life, it asks what she can learn in that room that might allow her to change her own.
And sometimes, the person who changes a woman’s future isn’t the powerful man sitting across from her. It’s the woman sitting beside her.
Female friendship becomes its own form of access—access to knowledge, courage, opportunity, and the ability to begin again when the life someone expected suddenly disappears.
For Bain, financial independence does not necessarily mean becoming wealthy. It means having choices: the ability to leave, move, say no, survive an unexpected change, take a risk, or remain in a relationship because of love rather than financial necessity.
That distinction became especially meaningful in a story unfolding during the pandemic, when millions of people discovered just how quickly circumstances they considered permanent could change.
Seeking Alpha ultimately isn’t an argument against love, marriage, or sharing in another person’s success. It is an argument for maintaining an identity beneath all of them.
Markets change. Fortunes disappear. Relationships end. Industries transform. Unexpected opportunities appear.
Women cannot control all of those things.
But they can learn. They can adapt. They can understand money. They can recognize opportunity. They can support one another. And they can build something that belongs to them.
Perhaps the goal was never to find your alpha. Perhaps the goal was to become it.
Seeking Alpha by Anastasia Bain was released September 8, 2026, and is available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook formats.
About the Author
Anastasia Bain is a New York City writer with a background in psychology and occupational therapy. Her debut adult novel, Seeking Alpha, explores money, ambition, relationships, faith, female friendship, and reinvention against the worlds of Wall Street and New York nightlife.
Contact:
Anastasia Bain
@seeking.alpha_thebook
