A USA TODAY bestseller — the long-awaited second novel from the author of The Idea of You.
What happens when a fantasy from your past collides with your reality?
In a complicated marriage to a French film director whose career has catapulted far beyond her own, and raising her children on the westside of Los Angeles — a toxic playground of privilege and power — Cecilia Chen is struggling to find her real self among the many labels assigned to her: wife, mother, artist, daughter.
Then she crashes, literally, into Anouk Ferrand. It has been twenty years since Cecilia last encountered the enigmatic model — on a photo shoot in Mexico, when Cecilia was a photographer's assistant and Anouk was an unknown. It is this chance second meeting that will upend Cecilia's life, forcing her to revisit their brief time together and question where she truly fits.
A keenly observed departure from her blockbuster debut, this is a fearlessly intimate novel of messy, complicated relationships — one that moves through desire, race, power, and the shifting terrain of identity and selfhood.
Praise
“The ideal beach read … an irresistible mix of glamorous, thought-provoking and sexy. Lee's follow-up to The Idea of You, and it's just as juicy.” — Curtis Sittenfeld
“Glittery and sensuous.” — TIME, a Most Anticipated Book of 2026
About the author
Robinne Lee is the bestselling author of The Idea of You, translated into two dozen languages and adapted into a record-breaking film for Amazon Studios starring Anne Hathaway. A graduate of Yale and Columbia Law School, she is also an actress and producer, and lives in Paris with her husband and two children.
Perfect for readers of
The Idea of You, Curtis Sittenfeld, Miranda July's All Fours — glamorous on the surface, genuinely unsettling underneath.
