Work Nights

A lowly media planner pursues friendship and love while trying to stay afloat at her magazine job in Peplin’s witty and emotionally raw debut. Twenty-something narrator Jane Grabowski can’t tell whether she’s been promoted or sidelined when she’s assigned to work under fashion editor Bekah Rake, a woman whose “glamorous boredom” reminds Jane of Cher from Clueless. Mainly, Jane lusts for department intern Madeline Navarro, who keeps sending her mixed signals. If the situationship between Jane and Madeline weren’t messy enough, musician and serial monogamist Addy enters the picture and makes Jane even more conflicted about what she truly wants. While she basks in Addy’s comparatively effusive attention, she also longs for the excitement she felt with Madeline. Peplin keeps readers rooting for Jane to find love, but more indelible than the romance plot is the depiction of the bond between Jane and her colleagues, who call themselves the Stepford Planners and dish about their cutthroat office (“Getting fired was like dying except worse because nobody gave you a gravestone,” Jane reflects after Bekahe gets the axe). Devotees of The Devil Wears Prada will find much to love. Agent: Alison Lewis, Frances Goldin Literary. (June)