Tech Wives - by Kirstin Chen (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A stylish, smartly observed story about friendship, marriage, and modern life, this timely novel follows two women married to tech billionaires whose values and relationships are put to the test when public scandal threatens to destroy everything--from the New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit.

It began in a college dorm room, a promise between two ambitious young women, Sam and Cecily, to build meaningful lives. Despite their different backgrounds--Sam from an affluent family, Cecily with her working-class roots--the two quickly became inseparable. Decades later, they seem to have it all. Cecily is the polished, influential wife of a tech titan. Sam is a dedicated doctor who has just married the charismatic, idealistic founder of a social media empire.

But from the moment Sam steps onto her new husband's private jet for their honeymoon, she is plunged into a world of unimaginable wealth that clashes with her deeply held values. Meanwhile, Cecily's seemingly perfect marriage is a fortress built on unspoken truths and devastating compromises. As their husbands' ambitions escalate and public scrutiny intensifies, the pair is pushed to a breaking point as they attempt to hold on to all they've built together: their friendship, their marriages, their families. But what happens if you can only save one?

Set in the glittering, treacherous world of Silicon Valley, against a dizzying backdrop of wealth, power, and reputation-destroying scandal, Tech Wives is a page-turning exploration of intimacy caught in the cross hairs of our increasingly connected lives. Told from alternating perspectives, it's a deeply resonant portrait of love and female friendship--and the staggering cost of getting everything you thought you wanted.

Review Quotes

"Tech Wives is such a reading pleasure! Deft, unexpected, funny, heartbreaking and utterly of the moment. Perfect to get a book group talking--perfect to relish alone on a couch. Just the right book for our times." - Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

"Kirstin Chen has created another dazzling, delicious page-turner. Tech Wives invites us into the fairytale world of tech billionaires, and provides both a sharp deconstruction of the genius-boy myth and a thought-provoking interrogation of the gray areas of race, gender, and class that undergird the ultra-privileged echelon of Silicon Valley. But at its heart, it's an ambitious, riveting, and masterfully written coming-of-age story of two women and the friendship between them. I loved it, and I can't wait to share it with my dearest friends." - Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek

"Tech Wives is every bit as much a novel about marriage as it is a thrilling peek behind the curtain of the Silicon Valley elite. With nuanced psychological acuity and drastically higher stakes, Chen crafts dizzying moral dilemmas and sets the world spinning in this dazzling novel." - Rufi Thorpe, author of Margo's Got Money Troubles

"A con artist story, a pop-feminist caper, a fashionable romp. Fun! Pass the popcorn. Except nothing in this novel is what it seems. Make no mistake, Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read--but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority. . . . Readers love a twist and I won't spoil this one by revealing too much, but Chen is up to something innovative and subversive here. She uses the device to flip Asian and Asian American stereotypes inside out and upside down." - Camille Perri, New York Times Book Review