The Overnight Socialite: A Novel - Hardcover

Clark, Bridie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1602860823 ISBN 13: 9781602860827

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2009

Synopsis

Lucy Ellis moved to the Big Apple to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a fashion designer, but the native Midwesterner has just about had it with the city. A mousy, self-conscious girl trapped in a job at a designer sweatshop, Lucy has been mistreated, road-blocked, and otherwise insulted since her arrival. Overwhelmed by city life, Lucy is about to pack it all in and return home to Minnesota. Then she meets Wyatt.

After being publicly dissed by the glamour girl he’d been dating, man-about-town (and bored Ph.D. anthropologist) Wyatt Hayes wants to prove he’s still at the top of his game and boasts to his best friend that he can transform any girl—even wallflower Lucy Ellis—into this year’s “It” girl. If he can fool the upper crust of New York society into thinking an impostor like Lucy is the real thing, he can rip the chiffon veil off the whole Park Avenue social scene.

Lucy’s an unlikely candidate to become a red-carpet butterfly, but she considers it her last resort and jumps at the opportunity to “become somebody” in New York. Wyatt begins to rigorously train Lucy in the style, sounds, and sensibilities of socialites born with entire sets of silver spoons in their mouths. Three months of preparation culminate in Lucy’s appearance at the ultra-exclusive Fashion Forum Gala, where Lucy and Wyatt finally confront New York’s aristocracy—and their feelings for each other.

Set against the glittering backdrop of contemporary Manhattan, The Overnight Socialite puts a 21st-century sheen on a timeless story of transformation and unlikely love.

About this title

About the Author

Bridie Clark, a former book and magazine editor, graduated from Harvard University, where she was an editor of The Harvard Crimson. She has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, New York, Quest, and Elegant Bride. Clark’s debut novel, Because She Can, about a beleaguered young book editor who works for a notoriously tyrannical female publisher, was published in nineteen countries around the world. Clark lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter.

From Publishers Weekly

Clark (Because She Can) moves the Pygmalion myth to Manhattan, adds a dash of Thelma and Louise and proves what goes around, comes around to those born to the manor or trailer park. Professor Higgins is recast as suave bachelor Wyatt Hayes IV, the sleekest lion in the pride, who picks down-on-her-luck fashion designer wannabe Lucy Jo Ellis to make over into the toast of the town. The deal is eventually struck—makeover and a shot at well-born fashion contacts for a gentleman's bet that masks a lucrative and career-saving book deal. Along the way, these perfectly matched antagonists battle mean-as-a-snake society snoots and their own misguided ambitions to find happiness and each other. (And, it should be said, the Rain in Spain remix is pretty great: The snow in Gstaad puts Aspen's to shame! the newly svelte and prepped Lucy proclaims.) Yes, of course the ending's no surprise, but the rollicking, smart-aleck fun along the way is worth the price of admission. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1602860823
• ISBN 13: 9781602860827
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304