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If you can’t beat em, join em?
A NY-based secret society of powerful women, helping each other through influence-peddling and a whole lot more – modeled on the corrupt and seedy old-boys-club networks that have crisis-crossed the social, political and economic landscape of movers and shakers dominating the ruling classes since the dawn of recorded time.
When a “Please Join Us” – an exclusive summons opening doors to this “invitation-only” coalition – is received by Nicole Mueller, our first person POV narrator and a thirty-nine year old Yale-educated lawyer (yet one who is inexplicably stalled on her previously stellar career-trajectory), it’s unclear exactly what Nicole has been invited to.
As the women gather, (in a creepy sort-of-ritualistic “Lord of the Flies” summit), Nicole is drawn deeper and deeper into a world where nothing is straightforward, loyalty is assumed unquestionable, and the challenges involved in being accepted into the group are only exceeded by the impossibilities of ever escaping back out.
Twists and turns abound as Nicole embarks on a deadly serious cat-and-mouse game, a challenge of wits pitted against the supremely masterful, where everything she has ever worked for is suddenly on the table – home, marriage, career and ultimately, the freedom to live and lead her own deliberately-chosen life.
Intense, intelligently plotted, and desperately suspenseful – does changing the rules, winning at the patriarchy’s own game, really level the playing field? Or is it a sell-out, a mass exodus from a position teeming with unacknowledged potential – to one joining the ranks of the cynical and infinitely jaded testosterone-fueled zombies entrenched in the moral wilderness of winning at any cost.
Interesting and compelling, highly recommended, this taut and clever book will keep you reading – and perhaps squirming more than a little under its penetrating gaze.
A great big thank you to @simonandschusterCA , @Netgalley and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
