The Shop Girl Sonnets is a novel about 28 year-old Ellie Sweet who finds herself working at the chic uptown boutique, modeling outfits for the wealthy women of the Upper East Side. Ellie’s boyfriend wants her to move in with him, but he also wants to film them having sex. Best friend Frannie wants Ellie to move home to San Francisco and get back together with her old beau, but only so they can relive college. And Ellie’s roommate, Momoko, tells Ellie that life is perfect the way it is, if your name is Momoko and you’re moving to Spain. Before Ellie becomes like the plastic mannequins in the window of the Madison Avenue boutique she works in—motionless, lifeless—she must find an opening to the creativity-filled life she longs for.
Enter Baroness Lucy.
"Baroness Lucy—the lovechild of Isabella Blow and Diana Vreeland—was obviously my new favorite customer on the Upper East Side, hands down. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something about the woman was magical—as if an etheric, happy dust constantly shook from her dark, red mane, putting you and all others in a mesmerized trance. And, I’d hardly be going out on a limb if I would infer that Baroness Lucy was a true incarnation of both definitions of a Lady of the Hour—meaning the priestess and harlot queen.
Put simply, I wanted to be her. I was so in love with every image of this woman and I couldn’t believe such a perfect, elegant, sophisticated, charming, sexy person had ever existed prior to this one moment of meeting this woman."
Ellie begins dressing the shop windows as a creative outlet to emulate her favorite designer and balance the intensity of the women shoppers and their needs.
In the midst of deciding whether to move in with her boyfriend Jack she is confronted by her arch nemesis Ashley Asprey, who also wants a piece of Jack. Just as confusing is the feelings that keep arising whenever she runs into her new Brooklyn neighbor, August.
The Shop Girl Sonnets is an inspiring, feel-good story about having the courage to go after one’s dreams even when the odds are stacked against you. Readers who enjoyed the wit of He’s Just Not That Into You or the plot of The Nanny Diaries will enjoy this 90,000 word commercial women’s fiction novel.
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