'Architecture is the new aphrodisiac,' Suzy Menkes has written, and Kizzie French's exhilarating debut novel explores this glamorous and viciously competitive milieu through the ambitions of the feisty Calla Marchant, who aims to make her mark on the millennium by pitching for one of the professions's glittering prizes. As the action swirls with a cinematic sweep between London and New York, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, Calla is forced to come to terms with the intricacies of her own turbulent love life as well as the ploys of her unscrupulous rivals.