The White Rose

New York Times–Bestselling Author of The Plot: A May-December romance tale "rife with deliciously cutting social satire [and] observations on growing older" (Vogue).

Passion, infidelity, social climbing, and one very special white rose weave a seductive narrative in this "droll, sexy, and very clever" novel (Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent).


At forty-eight, Marian Kahn, a professor of history at Columbia, has reached a comfortable perch. Married, wealthy, and the famed discoverer of the eighteenth-century adventuress Lady Charlotte Wilcox, she ought to be content. Instead, she is horrified to find herself profoundly in love with twenty-six-year-old Oliver, the son of her eldest friend.


When Marian's cousin, the snobbish Barton, announces his engagement to Sophie, a graduate student in Marian's department, Marian, Oliver, and Sophie find their lives woefully entangled, and their hearts turned in unfamiliar directions . . .


From the West Village to the Upper East Side, from the Hamptons to Millbrook, The White Rose is at once a nuanced and affectionate reimagining of Strauss's beloved opera, Der Rosenkavalier, and a mesmerizing novel of our own time and place.


"Utterly charming and sharply written." —Seattle Times

"A satisfying, emotionally rich read." —Publishers Weekly