When Harriet Mahoney first saw it, Isabel Krug’s bed was covered in sheared sheep and littered with celebrity biographies. The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet had fled wintry Manhattan in response to a mysterious ad in the New York Review of Books: “Book in progress? Why not share my Cape Cod retreat? Roomy and peaceful—your life will be your own.”

In a room with a view atop a Truro dune, Harriet starts on a different path to fulfillment by ghostwriting The Isabel Krug Story, based on the sexy blonde’s tabloid past—specifically, a nasty night in Greenwich, Connecticut, when Guy Van Vleet died and Isabel lived to tell about it. Unusually talented in the man department, Isabel revamps and inspires Harriet as they gear up to tell all. Life according to Isabel is a soap-opera extravaganza, an experience to be swallowed whole—and the attitude is catching.