In her first book since the cultural phenomenon Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell triumphantly returned with the national best-seller Four Blondes, which The New York Times says chronicles the glittering lives of semicelebrities, social aspirants, and moneyed folk ... [with] withering precision. Now her collection of novellas is available in paperback -- just in time to pack in your handbag for that summer weekend getaway to the Hamptons or that romantic rendezvous on Martha's Vineyard. Four Blondes tells the stories of four women facing up to the limitations of their rapidly approaching middle age in an era that worships youth. From the former It-girl heroine of Nice N'Easy, who each summer looks for a rich man who'll provide her with a house in the Hamptons, to the writer-narrator of Single Process, who goes to London on a hunt for love and a good magazine story, Bushnell brings to life contemporary women in search of something more -- when the world is pushing for them to settle for less. Sexy, funny, and wonderfully lush with gossip and scandal, Four Blondes will keep you turning pages long into the night.

The author whose name is synonymous with her novel Sex and the City weighs in again with four loosely linked tales that form a sexually charged and withering analysis of how New York's--and London's--women work feverishly at their relationships, meanwhile trying desperately to make their names. In the first chapter, the bluntly scheming, semisuccessful model Janey Wilcox is in her 10th year of charming powerful, rich men into installing her in their Hamptons homes for the summer. The mutual benefits are obvious: the moguls get a gorgeous sex kitten to display and bed, while she summers in high style. When this arrangement leads to a few humiliating encounters, however, Janey tries her hand at screenwriting and attempts real estate school, but eventually she finds her fortune in a more realistic endeavor: a lucrative lingerie modeling contract. The next story features Winnie, a successful columnist married to a mediocre literary journalist. The victims of relentless ambition and disappointment, they lash one another with insults, each finding their only solace in one-night stands. The third tale is the paranoid confession of Cecelia, who wants to be normal and pops pills to mitigate her fear of being nothing without a man. The last blonde is an unnamed 40-year-old journalist who, disillusioned with Manhattan males, travels to London on a magazine assignment to compare English and American men's attitudes about sex. The Brit banter revolves entirely around sexual technique and penis size, but manages to be entertaining. Mostly, the novel is New York-centric, focused on the obsessions of desperate people and replete with glittering details to satisfy the most exacting fashionista. Though superficial, these characters' envy and spite rises from their fear of mortality, of dying without having left their mark. Mercilessly satirical, Bushnell's scathing insights and razor wit are laced with an understanding of this universal human fear, and they inspire fear and pity in the reader. Agent, Heather Schroder, ICM. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

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