Fashionably Late

Prominent designer Karen Kahn has just won the fashion industry's top achievement award. As this witty, energetic and sometimes caustic novel quickly shows, however, it's all downhill from there. Karen's company, KK Inc., needs a huge infusion of cash to expand, and her handsome but evasive husband, Jeffrey, who handles the finances, pushes for a $50 million buyout by the megacorporation NormCo. But will Karen lose control of her designs? And how ethically does NormCo run its business? This new novel by the author of The First Wives Club works at every level. An engaging, behind-the-scenes look at the fashion industry, it lays bare the frenetic pace, cutthroat competition and chronic backbiting of the world of couture. Also an engrossing family saga, it shows 40-year-old Karen, who is infertile, desperately trying to adopt a baby and, as an adopted child herself, searching for her birth mother. The narrative also offers a hilariously dark portrait of Karen's immediate--and totally dysfunctional--family. A glittering New York social backdrop, plenty of namedropping, romance, some outstandingly creative characters and a mystic who applies a unique hex add up to a book that fairly hums with excitement. 150,000 first printing; $175,000 ad/promo; audio rights to HarperAudio; author tour. (Aug.)