Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a busy legal career a solid marriage and a way of managing her thriving family with grace humor and boundless energy With twin daughters finishing high school a son at Dartmouth and a kindergartner from her second marriage there seems to be no challenge to which Olympia cannot rise Until one sunny day in May when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the most exclusive coming-out ball in New Yorkndashand chaos erupts all around her One twinrsquos excitement is balanced by the otherrsquos outrage her previous husbandrsquos profound snobbism is in sharp contrast to her current husbandrsquos flat refusal to attend For Olympiarsquos husband Harry whose parents survived the Holocaust the idea of a blue-blood debutante ball is abhorrent Her daughter Veronica a natural-born rebel agreesndash while Veronicarsquos identical twin Virginia is already shopping for the perfect dress Then therersquos Olympiarsquos ex an insufferable snob who sees the ball as the perfect opportunity for a family feud And amid all the hubbub Olympiarsquos college-age son Charlie is facing a turning point in his lifendashand may need his mother more than ever But despite it all Olympia is determined to steer her family through the event until just days before the cotillion things begin to unravel with alarming speed From a sonrsquos crisis to a daughterrsquos heartbreak from a case of the chicken pox to a political debate raging in her household Olympia is on the verge of surrender And that is when in a series of startling choices and changes of heart family friends and even a blue-haired teenager all find a way to turn a night of calamity into an evening of magic As old wounds are healed barriers are shattered and new traditions are born and a debutante ball becomes a catalyst for change revelation acceptance and love In a novel that is by turns profound poignant moving and warmly funny Danielle Steel tells the story of an extraordinary familyndashfinding new ways of letting go stepping up and coming outin the ways that matter most.
