Bea, the scheming narrator of screenwriter Croft's engrossing debut, has learned from the best, a mother who groomed her from childhood how to deceive men. Now Bea, a senior business development director at a major New York City ad agency, wants it all for herself--and she wants it from über-wealthy one percenter Collin Case, an agency client. But two other women shadow Bea's every move as she sinks her nails into Collin's old-money family: Gale Wallace-Leicester, Collin's longtime conniving best friend, who also has designs on the family; and Sylvia Austin, his new inquisitive assistant with nefarious plans of her own. One jaw-dropping bombshell after another emerges during luxurious family gatherings in Greenwich, Conn.; an over-the-top lobster-stuffed and liquor-drenched weekend marriage proposal party at Newport, R.I.; a French-themed bridal shower with "this little perverse sect of society"; and the extravagant Rainbow Room wedding itself, culminating in totally unexpected revelations from the past. The intricate plot, illuminating backstories, and assorted reprehensible secondary characters expose a devastatingly "pernicious interpretation of love." This clever tale of jealousy, revenge, deception, and betrayal marks Croft as a writer to watch. Agent: Rachel Kim; 3 Arts Entertainment. (Feb.)

DEBUT Croft's debut is a psychological thriller about an ambitious woman named Bea who has made it her life goal to seduce and marry a rich man, then settle down and forget her troubled past. After a life of conning alongside "Mother," she's determined to finish out her life differently. Does she have what it takes to pull off the ultimate con and leave her past behind, or will her lies expose her for who she really is? Even though this is plot-driven, novel, Bea has very intriguing character traits and flaws despite her best efforts to hide or combat them. The story jumps back and forth in time to Bea's traumatic upbringing with "Mother," who taught her to use her beauty and brains to get whatever she wants, and the present, as she tries to secure a life with Collin, the family heir. Croft's writing is engaging and will keep the reader wondering what will happen to Bea until the end. VERDICT This is excellent writing for a debut author and is a must-read for fans of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl or Lisa Unger's Confessions on the 7:45.--Lacey Webster

A New York City woman eager to marry into wealth finds the perfect husband-to-be--but there's much more to the story. Beatrice is an executive at a large advertising agency in New York, and she's beautiful. She's well paid and good at her job--but she has her sights set on marrying into the security and solid future that only supreme wealth can bring. When Collin Case asks her out on a date after she gives an ad presentation to his family's packaged-goods company, she decides to see if inherited wealth is worth trying to catch. Seven dates in, she decides that Collin will definitely be the man she marries. But Bea is not what she seems. Her childhood was spent bouncing from place to place, acting out long-con swindles with her mother, who married men "one after another after another after another." That made Bea an expert in deception, but she's not interested in replicating that life or being anything like her mother. Even though the backstory--and identity--she's created for herself is airtight, getting the Case family to welcome her into the fold is not easy. Told entirely from Bea's point of view, the story moves between her efforts to get to her wedding day despite obstacles that include Collin's best friend, Gale Wallace-Leicester, who's also in love with him, and her childhood efforts to please her mother, whose love she desperately craved. Author Croft plays with themes of light and dark, right and wrong, moral and immoral, teasing the reader with bits of information that point in one direction only to shift the focus to quite another. Fans of Tara Isabella Burton's Social Creature will enjoy this emotionally dark and twisting story. An absorbing story that plays with ideas of good and evil, keeping readers guessing who is the hero and who the villain. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.