FROM THE PUBLISHER

When turbocharged Park Avenue mom Ivy Ames finds that she¿¿¿s been downsized from herplatinum-card corporate job and her marriage, she swiftly realizes that she¿¿¿s going to need a whole new way to support herself and her two private-school daughters. So she dreams up a new business¿¿¿helping upscale New Yorkers get their little darlings into the most exclusive kindergartens in the city. What begins as one woman¿¿¿s bid to earn a living becomes an everywoman¿¿¿s tale of midlife reinvention and unexpected romance, set in a looking-glass world where even tots have résumés. "If you think you may be a neurotic parent, read this and feel sane." ¿¿¿Allison Pearson, author of I Don¿¿¿t Know How She Does It "Entertaining . . . Picks up where The Nanny Diaries left off." ¿¿¿The New York Post "[A] ferociously funny tale." ¿¿¿Us Weekly "Hilarious." ¿¿¿Child magazine "Tales of Manhattan¿¿¿s elite trying to get their tots into private schools is sure to make you smirk condescendingly . . . The Ivy Chronicles delivers." ¿¿¿Boston Herald "The brilliant, witty, and ultimately soulful heroine is a perfect tour guide who will leave you laughing up your latté." ¿¿¿Jill Kargman, author of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing "With humor and heart, Karen Quinn brilliantly skewers the insanely competitive world of wealth we love to hate. Readers will cheer for Ivy!" ¿¿¿Leslie Schnur, author of The Dog Walker

Author Biography
KAREN QUINN, after losing her own high-powered corporate job, helped found Smart City Kids, a New York City¿¿¿based company that helps families survive the application process to the area¿¿¿s most competitive public and private schools. She is now a full-time writer.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Fresh from a divorce and a nasty firing, Ivy Ames has launched a new business: helping Manhattan parents get their kids into the right kindergartens. Quinn herself founded a similar company, so she'll get the details right. With a five-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

After losing job and husband, a high-powered businesswoman (unfortunately) finds herself: the latest in the Nanny Diaries cycle of employment novels. Ivy Ames, in marketing for an investment house, is one of those frantically busy Wall Street women (mainlining coffee, handling the kids, hating her sexist boss) we've seen before. And, like most of them, she gets fired right off the bat and goes home to find hubby in flagrante with a family friend. Now unemployed, with a couple of rug-rats to feed and educate, Ivy has to figure out how to keep herself in private-school tuition and in bedding from ABC Home and Carpet. Having recently been of the ruling class, she figures out a service that parents of that class will need: consulting on how to get their children into private school. Never mind that nowhere does Quinn provide a good reason why the advice Ivy imparts to her clients couldn't have been picked up at an Upper West Side soiree. All the reader can do is sit back and watch Ivy's fabulous life come together in a ready-for-TV, label- and status-obsessed, technicolor fantasy. The first weakness is Ivy, barely qualifying as two-dimensional, so depressingly shallow that you might find yourself hoping for a Bonfire of the Vanities-style comeuppance at the end; she's like a stranger wandering through her own story. And then there are the secondary characters, a clutch of stereotypes whose portrayals flirt with classism and racism at the best of times. And there's Quinn's writing, which provides Ivy with lines like, "To my surprise and joy, caring for the children was a joy," in its attempt to humanize her (as a bonus, there's a love scene that actually uses the words "loins" and "softwomanly flesh"). Dull, obvious, offensive, Botox- and yoga-stuffed first novel. Agent: Robin Straus/Robin Straus Agency

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

I'm still laughing....This exotic journey into private-school mania is fascinating, surprising, a little scary and, in Quinn's hands, very funny. — (Bonnie Marston, author of Sleeping with Schubert)