Champagne at Seven! by Toni Glickman
Saks Fifth Avenue, Prada, Jil Sander, Chanel, Bloomingdale’s, Burberry. The luxury retail space at its finest. Author Toni Glickman should know. She spent what she remembers as “20 years in the cashmere and silk-studded front lines in the luxury space of this piranha-infested industry.”
And she remembers it well. So well, in fact, that she has captured its essence, all the pressure, exhaustion, depression, anxiety and entitled clients, in Book One of her “Bitches of Fifth Avenue” series called Champagne at Seven! (Speaking Volumes) – a joyful read about a woman rediscovering herself in her mid-forties after exiting her rich surroundings.
A STORY WHERE EVERYTHING MUST BE “JUST SO”
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, meet Olivia Wyatt. She’s rich, she’s married and she’s ticking off the list of party necessities before a last-minute formal dinner she has been instructed to prepare that very evening for Washington, D.C.’s high society. Everything is perfect and everything is expensive, from the bespoke clear acrylic dining table (so the black and white tile floor copied from New York’s Mark Hotel can be admired) to the Baccarat crystal, the flowers, the sterling flatware, and the champagne perfectly cooled to exactly 52 degrees Fahrenheit. The guests are arriving, swanning about at their affected best, and Olivia is presiding over a most elegant soiree.
Her teenage daughter, Gwynnie, is happily sequestered in her room, and her husband is due any minute. And Olivia? Has she found comfort and joy in what she might regard as her superficial life? In a strange way, does she somehow perfectly fit into this imperfect existence?
A MIDDLE-AGED WAKEUP CALL
It’s a flawless evening of dining, music, and gossip, this evening – that is, until tragedy hits, big time, transforming Olivia’s life forever. She is suddenly penniless and single.
She and Gwynnie are uprooted, Olivia spiraling out of control, out of money, and out of D.C. – back into Olivia’s childhood home in New Jersey with her mother. Her expensive wardrobe and possessions have been sold off to pay bills and expenses.
No more imported flowers and $10,000 handbags. No, now it’s generic shampoo and Duane Read clearance sale lipstick. Olivia spends her days shuffling around in pajamas, sleeping till noon, feeling sorry for herself and Googling her name for gossip.
A REFRESHING RISE TO THE CHALLENGE
Gwynnie, on the other hand, has risen to the task. She has a job, a positive attitude, and the guts to tell her mother to get a job, too. “Maybe consider putting on some mascara and eyeliner,” she tells her mother. “No one wants to hire a hot mess.”
Olivia finally screws her courage to the sticking place and canvasses Manhattan to find someplace where her expertise is useful. And what is she good at? Mingling with moneyed people, recognizing fine things, designer clothes, and accessories. She’s been doing it for years, so when she’s mistaken for a salesperson at the high-end department store Harper James, a light goes on and she knows at once where she belongs: surrounded by extravagant, luxurious things.
But now, instead of buying these things, she’ll be selling them, working alongside the “Bitches of Fifth Avenue.”
CAPTURING THE ESSENCE OF FIFTH AVENUE
Toni Glickman has earned familiarity with the world in which Olivia now lives, from her decades of experience in retail businesses catering to the rich and glamorous. But readers of all walks of life will connect to the feelings of insecurity, competition, victory, love, and loss here. The book manages to touch on all of these elements.
Although the focus of Champagne at Seven! is the admirable pluck and perseverance of Olivia, the love among three women – Olivia, her independent daughter, and the strong matriarch Gladys – drives this story. Readers will be rooting for them.
Book One gets Olivia out of DC and into New York, but not completely out of hot water. In Book Two, Glickman introduces readers to more “bitches,” where Olivia must survive (and thrive) among them. Stay tuned!
About Toni Glickman:
Toni Glickman is a former luxury retail executive, who spent 20 years on the front lines of what she recalls as a piranha-infested industry. It is a life lived constantly on the edge. Moving up the ladder from sales associate to industry executive, Glickman compares working in the field to the front lines of a minefield. Her colleagues exemplified the mines in which she had to navigate through in order to survive and make her sales numbers, which is all that matters at the end of the day when the cash registers close. She now enjoys life as a real estate professional, where she sets her own schedule and no longer needs to contend with maneuvering “bitchy” retail colleagues. She’s also a Francophile, plays classical piano, loves the cinema, travel, her children, family, friends and her Teacup Pomeranian.
