Lilian Quick has looked up to her cousin Florence her whole life. Florence is everything Lilian is not: brave, confident, quick to find adventure, and American. The women have been out of touch for years due to a family rift, but Lilian—childless, single, and self-employed as a pet portraitist—has been watching Florence for years. Florence is now internet-famous as Eleven Novak, the face of a compelling new feminine lifestyle empowerment brand.
When Eleven comes to town as part of her sales tour, she offers Lilian a place at the Temple, her Manhattan office. Despite twenty years of silence, Eleven welcomes her long-lost cousin with open arms, and the two women begin a new relationship. Lilian quickly enrolls in the Ascendency, Eleven’s signature program, an expensive three-month training seminar on empowered leadership, spiritual awakening, and sales and marketing. Eleven is going to help her cousin rise to her highest self: confident, affluent, and self-actualized.
Lilian’s sensitive, artistic nature is stretched by the work she does in the Ascendency, and pushed even further by her cousin’s careful life coaching. In just three months, Lilian’s life changes drastically and becomes everything she’s dreamed of. But is it everything she wants? And can she trust everything Eleven says?
Sarah Selecky’s breakout debut collection, This Cake Is for the Party, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her stories have been published in the Walrus, Elle, the New Quarterly, and The Journey Prize anthology, among other publications. She is also the creator of the beloved online creative writing school, and MFA alternative, Story Is a State of Mind.View all by Sarah Selecky
