When she loses her high-powered job, her husband and her plush Park Avenue apartment in one afternoon, Ivy Ames emerges broken but unbowed. The newly single mother-of-two picks herself up, dusts herself down and reinvents herself as a private school admissions advisor.

But Ivy has no idea what she's let herself in for. In a parent-eat-parent world where even four-year-olds have CVs, Ivy is driven to lengths she'd never dreamed of to satisfy those well-heeled clients who'll do literally anything to get their little darlings into the A-list schools.

Fast paced, feel good and very, very funny, this deliciously over-the-top tale of mid-life reinvention and unexpected romance will appeal to anyone who has ever lost all they hold dear and had to start over again.