Nine Women, One Dress

Like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Rosen’s witty debut novel features a transformative item of clothing, not for four girls coming of age, but for nine women living in present-day New York. Max Hammer’s little black dress, as executed by 90-year-old pattern-maker Morris Siegel and singled out by Women’s Wear Daily, becomes the dress of the season. Rosen adroitly ties together her stories: the author is at her most romantic with Natalie, a Bloomingdale’s saleswoman, and Felicia, a middle-aged woman secretly in love with her widowed boss; she is at her most clever with Sophie, an underemployed Brown grad using selfies and hashtags to fashion the life she wants. And using multiple points of view enlivens and adds a lightheartedness to the book’s romantic story lines—Natalie and Felicia tell their stories, but so do the men in their lives, Jeremy and Arthur, not to mention a host of others united by the fateful dress. This is a fun book, tightly plotted and perfectly timed for the summer season. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. (July)