A novel that evokes "the creative sisterhood of Little Women, the social scandal of Edith Wharton and the courtship mishaps of Jane Austen. . . delightful." — New York Daily News In Gilded Age New York, Virginia Loftin is the oldest of four artistic sisters living in genteel poverty on the outskirts of high society. Her dream is to become a celebrated novelist despite her gender, and to marry Charlie, the boy next door and her first love. So when Charlie proposes instead to a woman from a wealthy family, Ginny is devastated. Shutting out her family, she holes up and turns their story into fiction, obsessively rewriting a better ending. Though she works with newfound intensity, literary success eludes her—until she attends a salon at a Fifth Avenue mansion belonging to her brother's friend John Hopper. Among painters, musicians, actors, and writers, Ginny returns to herself, even blooming under the handsome, enigmatic John's increasingly romantic attentions. Just as she and her siblings have become swept up in the society, though, Charlie throws himself back into her path, and Ginny learns that the salon's bright lights may be obscuring some dark shadows. Torn between two worlds that aren't quite as she'd imagined them, Ginny will realize how high the stakes are for her family, her writing, and her chance at love. "[A] powerful debut. . . . Callaway paints an all too real portrait of the power of love to both create and destroy. Readers will never see the twists around every corner." — Library Journal "Engrossing." —Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker "Callaway melds romance, intrigue, and the pursuit of art . . . Readers will enjoy cameos by Edith Wharton and Oscar Wilde, two writers who influenced her dramatization of the dangers of social climbing." — Booklist "An affecting and appealing heroine." —Jennifer Robson, author of The Gown