'Irresistible' 'Fabulous''Gripping'
Daily Telegraph ObserverThe Sunday Times

In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937,
watching a quartet because she couldn't afford to see the whole ensemble,
there were certain things Katey Kontent knew:

the location of every old church in Manhattan
how to sneak into the cinema
how to type eighty words a minute, five thousand an hour, and nine million a year
and that if you can still lose yourself in a Dickens novel then everything is going to be fine.

By the end of the year she'd learned:
how to live like a redhead
and insist upon the very best;
that riches can turn to rags in the trip of a heartbeat,
chance encounters can be fated, and the word 'yes' can be a poison.

That's how quickly New York City comes about, like a weathervane, or the head of a cobra. Time tells which.

'A delicious and memorable novel that will leave you wistful - and desperate for a martini.' Stylist

Amor Towles is the author of New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway. The three novels have collectively sold more than six million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.