“Is romance like oxygen? Without it, does your pulse start slowing, does its beat start weakening, do you—in the most vital way—begin to die?”
September 2001. Cate, Teddy, Ames, and Sloane—four newly minted Class of 2001 graduates—are still reeling from their first heartbreaks as they enter adult life, oblivious that the world on the brink of vast, irreversible change. When the Twin Towers fall on September 11th, the tragedy intertwines their lives and futures in supernatural ways, altering the imprint they leave on the people around them.
Written as a tribute to the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks that will be marked in 2026, Bright Stars is a portrait of the tragedy that dented the romantic imagination of a forgotten generation—The Last of the Innocents—just as the final traces of offline life vanished forever.
A captivating story of fate, love, and human connection, Bright Stars is a time machine that will transport you back to the closing days of the era the world is now longing for.
“You will be a grand total of what you spend your time doing in your life—so what do you want to add up to?”
When M. meets Belle at Dartmouth, they become the unlikeliest best friends. Belle is an unapologetic Romantic famous on campus for her bright red accessories and hundred-watt smile, while M. is a tomboyish Realist who insists she’ll always prefer her signet ring to any diamond. Despite their differences, they are drawn together, and after graduation they both move to New York with all the unfounded confidence of twenty-two.
M. secures a job at the city’s most prestigious investment bank, and Belle turns her nostalgic aesthetic into one of the first lifestyle blogs, which quickly goes viral. Their future is spread before them, a glittering tableau of vintage cocktails, password-guarded parties, and high-octane ambition. But as they are pulled deeper into their new lives, and into the charming orbit of their Gatsby-esque new friend, Jeremy, style and substance―and dreams and reality―increasingly blur. In this fake plastic world, what do success and love and happiness even look like?
Dazzling, whimsical, and full of yearning, Fake Plastic Love is the transporting story of bright young things tested by the unsentimental realities of post-graduate life. Tipping its hat to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kimberley Tait’s gorgeous, incisive debut is a portrait of millennial Manhattan―equal parts nostalgia and modernity―that explores the timeless question: You will be a grand total of what you spend your time doing, so what do you want to add up to?
