GIRLS ON THE EDGE
The dazzling, evocative, and tender-hearted story of two women struggling to reconcile the friendship they remember with the reality of their current lives, for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid, Layne Fargo, and Allison Larkin.
Los Angeles, 1987: Dulcie arrives on the Sunset Strip chasing a feeling and is quickly swept up in the raucous scene. She finds a chosen family in the neon-bright clubs, falling for the allure of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and cementing the kind of friendship she’s always been desperate for with Tamsen, an aspiring filmmaker documenting their chaotic corner of the Strip. Dulcie and Tamsen have both always felt like too much, but for a moment, together on the edge of adulthood, on the edge of everything, they finally belong.
Years later, Tamsen is eager to make her mark with a bold, explosive film about the glam rock scene and its groupies—her chance to step into a world she’s always felt closed off from. But when the film reshapes their shared history into a public spectacle, both women are forced to confront the gaps between their memories, who they see on the screen, and who they want to be.
Unfolding across three decades, Girls on the Edge immerses readers in the sparkling world of ambition and excess, examining the complexities of friendship, womanhood, and the struggle to live with—or outrun—our past selves.
THE COVER GIRL
“Alluring… The book rides the razor’s edge of dramatic irony. Readers will root for Rossi’s searching protagonist as she finds her strength.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Thrilling and glamorous as its runways and backstage parties, The Cover Girl is also heartbreaking and redemptive with an ending that made me cry. Birdie is a singular, unforgettable character whose story encapsulates so much of what led up to the #MeToo movement, and why the movement was so necessary.”
—Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Pines
Find them early enough, and they will always be her girls.
Birdie Rhodes was only thirteen when legendary modeling agent Harriet Goldman discovered her in a department store and transformed her into one of Harriet’s Girls. What followed felt like the start of something incredible, a chance for shy Birdie to express herself in front of the camera. But two years later, she meets a thirty-one-year-old rock star, and her teenage heart falls hard as he leads her into a new life, despite Harriet’s warnings. Then, as abruptly as it began, it’s over, like a lipstick-smeared fever dream. Birdie tries hard to forget that time—starting over in Paris, in the dying embers of the LA punk scene, in Boston at the height of the AIDS crisis. She’s not that person anymore. At least, that’s what she’s been telling herself.
Decades later, Birdie lives a quiet life. She works modest gigs, takes Pilates and mostly keeps to herself. Maybe it’s not the glamor she once envisioned, but it’s peaceful. Comfortable. Then a letter arrives, inviting Birdie to celebrate Harriet’s fifty-year career. Except Birdie hasn’t spoken to her in nearly thirty years—with good reason.
Almost famous, almost destroyed, Birdie can only make her own future if she reckons with her past—the fame, the trauma, the opportunities she gave up for a man who brought her into a life she wasn’t ready for. Just like she’s not ready now. But the painful truth waits for nobody. Not even Birdie Rhodes.
For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Taylor Jenkins Reid, this striking debut novel explores the dizzying fallout of being seen and not heard in a high-stakes industry that leaves no silhouette unscathed.
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