Gossip of the Starlings - by Nina de Gramont (Paperback)

About the Book

When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the charismatic and beautiful Skye Butterfield chooses Catherine for her best friend, in this chilling portrait of an adolescent seduced into ruin by an unrelenting peer.

Book Synopsis

"The book soars . . . A transfixing confessional about the secret lives of dangerous girls."
--Kirkus

When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with danger and the thrill of breaking rules, taking risks, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. The problem is, the stakes keep getting higher, and Catherine can neither resist Skye nor stop her from taking down everyone around her.

De Gramont's chilling novel is a portrait of the seductions of adolescence in all their beauty and terror. Caught in this alluring world, the girls of Esther Percy are optimistic and willful, loving and selfish, daring and cruel--all the while believing they're utterly indestructible.

Review Quotes

"It's a rare book that draws you into the tiny, idiosyncratic world of its characters so completely, and de Gramont's descriptions are often so vivid you'll want to give them a closer read...grade: A-."--The Washington Post

"Sparkles with an intense exuberance . . . it trumps Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace...Gossip of the Starlings will join that shelf reserved for literary classics." --Providence Sunday Journal

"The kind of smart and riveting read that fans of a certain kind of campus drama--think Donna Tartt's The Secret History -- will devour...There's romance, betrayal, a gorgeous scholarship boy and a spot-on rendering of the queasy regret you sometimes feel when friends from separate orbits meet. Grab this one and share it with your teenage daughter." --People, four stars