First published 2011
India Palmer scrapes by as a cash-strapped novelist until a yellow biplane lands at her wealthy friends' Maine retreat. Out steps Win Johns, a cocky mortgage-backed securities trader who finds himself intellectually restless despite his financial success. Win recognizes India's sharp mind and desperate need for money. He makes her an audacious offer: give him eighteen months and he will transform her into a world-class bond trader. India abandons her artist's existence with startling ease and plunges into the intoxicating world of New York finance during the second gilded age. She climbs the income ladder with breathtaking speed, leveraging crumbling real estate deals without hesitation. But as India reinvents herself completely, she remains blind to what this transformation will ultimately cost her. McPhee captures the riotous greed of an era when wealth seemed infinite and consequences felt distant.
Genres: fiction, romance, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, social-climbing
Setting: Maine, New York
Period: Second Gilded Age
352 pages · Paperback · Mariner Books