This novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. A chance encounter with Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults twenty-five-year-old Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into a year-long journey in the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow. Here in the executive suites of Conde Nast rarefied environs, she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her brand of cool nerve. She experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations below the surface. The novel offers a sparkling depiction of New York's social strata, intricate imagery and themes, a finely crafted unfolding of the unforeseen, and immensely appealing characters, particularly the heroine.