Short, light period women's fiction with itty-bitty chapters and clever twists is Ephron's specialty (A Cup of Tea
; White Rose
; etc.). This one is set in 1926 and features New York's postdeb set, pretty jazz-age flappers with bobbed hair who are either just about to be married or looking hard for a suitable husband at all the smart parties. When Lizzie Carswell is seen walking out of the Gramercy Park Hotel Sunday morning after a big dance at the Waldorf, still in her evening clothes and with another girl's fiancé, it takes no time at all for the scandalized buzz to reach every speakeasy and society gathering in town. That very night Lizzie is snubbed at the opera by absolutely everyone except kindhearted Mary Nell. A corpse turns up—is it the guilty fiancé, unable to face his future? That little mystery is quickly solved. Mary meets a handsome world traveler who might just be Mr. Right. And then some of the girls whirl off to Europe—Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo—with predictably unpredictable romantic results. Don't expect The Great Gatsby
(the fashionable new novel that Mary is reading aboard The Paris
as she steams off to Paris); expect, instead, a quick, delightful little excursion. Agent, Owen Laster
. (May)
