Short Synopsis
Intelligent, witty, and poignant, Gilded Age presents a modern Edith Wharton heroine—dramatically beautiful, socially prominent, and just a bit unconventional—whose return to the hothouse of Cleveland society revives rivalries, raises eyebrows, and reveals the tender vulnerabilities of a woman struggling to reconcile her desire for independence and her need for love.

Full Synopsis
Eleanor Hart had made a brilliant marriage in New York, but it ended in a scandalous divorce and thirty days in Sierra Tucson rehab. Now she finds that, despite feminist lip service, she will still need a husband to be socially complete. A woman's sexual reputation matters, and so does her family name. Ellie must navigate the treacherous social terrain where old money meets new: charitable benefits and tequila body shots, inherited diamonds and viper-bite lip piercings, country house weekends and sexting. She finds that her beauty is a powerful tool in this world, but it has its limitations, even liabilities. Through one misstep after another, Ellie mishandles her second act. Her options narrow, her future prospects contract, until she faces a desperate choice.

With a keen eye for detail and a heart big enough to embrace those she observes, Claire McMillan has written an assured and revelatory debut novel about class, gender, and the timeless conundrum of femininity.

"Huber handles [main character Ellie], at first with sublime indifference to Cleveland's strictures and mores, and later with the rueful irony of a ruined woman." ---AudioFile

"A hard-edged look at the vacuous, insipid elite of modern-day Cleveland, Ohio." ---Publishers Weekly

"If Edith Wharton had lived in contemporary Shaker Heights, here is the novel she would have written." ---Susan Rebecca White, author of A Soft Place to Land

"McMillan has brought Lily Bart back to vivid life in this witty, perceptive, and compulsively readable story of our human frailties, our strivings for success and love." ---Sheila Kohler, author of Becoming Jane Eyre

"A delightful first novel." ---Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World