Spending a summer in the Hamptons, Janey Wilcox befriends Mimi Kilroy, wife of media mogul George Paxton.

At first Janey is uninterested in Selden and is instead enamored with Zizi, a young Argentinian polo player with model looks and the countenance of a member of the European elite.

Determined to become a movie producer, Janey attempts to maneuver her way to the top of the New York social scene by any means necessary, including using her younger sister and her brother-in-law, a popular rock star, for her own ends.

It is more the tale of a beautiful woman who uses her looks as a tool to operate in a world where male ruthlessness is admired and feared, and yet her own casual callousness is deplored and scorned by those around her.

In the London Guardian, Stephanie Merritt wrote that the book "succeeds because she [Bushnell] provides what readers and audiences have always craved, from Molière down through Wilde and Mitford to Dynasty and the rash of current celebrity magazines—a window on to the stupidities and weaknesses of the rich and powerful, inspiring an addictive mix of envy and moral superiority.