Finishing Touches

In New York Times bestselling author Hester Browne's delightful new novel, a fading English finishing school is about to get a twenty-first-century makeover. Out with white gloves and flower arranging, in with managing mortgages and do-it-yourself manicures! Behind this remarkable transformation is business-savvy Betsy Phillimore, with her own unique connection to London's esteemed Phillimore Academy for Young Ladies....Twenty-seven years ago, an infant turned up on the Academy's doorstep, with a note tacked to her blanket by an elegant golden brooch -- Please take care of my baby. I want her to grow up to be a proper lady. Loved by Lady Frances Phillimore and her kindhearted staff, Betsy grew up aspiring to be an Academy girl. But when Franny and her husband, Lord Phillimore, advise Betsy to instead hone her considerable math skills at college, she brokenheartedly leaves behind the only family she's known.Now, on the sad occasion of Lady Frances's memorial service, Betsy comes back to find the school in disrepair, the enrollment down, and Lord P. desperate to save his legacy. Enter Betsy, the numbers genius, and her business plan -- to replace dusty protocol with the essentials girls need today: cell phone etiquette, eating sushi properly, handling credit cards, choosing the perfect little black dress, negotiating a pre-nup, and other lessons in independent living.But Betsy may have bitten off more than she can chew. Can she win over the school's snobby headmistress and its handsome but risk-averse treasurer? Returning to London also means facing her own unfinished business, as she crosses paths with her sexy girlhood crush...and blowing the dust off clues to a lifelong mystery: who were her parents, and why did they abandon her? If knowledge is power, Betsy is on the brink of truly becoming her own woman, and embracing the one thing she's wanted all along: a place to call home.A bittersweet journey of laughter and tears, The Finishing Touches will have you gleefully turning pages through dinner with elbows on the table -- bad manners, perhaps, but excusable for one utterly irresistible read.

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Title of ebook: Finishing Touches
ISBN: 9781439163467
parent-ISBN: 9781416540076
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pages: 384
Published: 06-2009
Released online for download: 06-09-2009
Author of eBook: Browne, Hester

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The Finishing Touches

One

The only truly waterproof mascara is an eyelash tint.

"Betsy, if you want a sneaky cry at weddings and funerals, dye your lashes." That was probably one of the best tips Franny gave me, out of the thousands she'd passed on, over twenty-seven happy years.

Also, "sunscreen now saves face-lifts later" and "never trust a man with a ready-made bow tie."

I stared blankly out of the window at the red London bus idling next to our taxi. For once I didn't mind the clogged-up traffic, because it gave me time to pull myself together between leaving the church and arriving at the memorial tea, where I'd have to hear how elegant and inspiring my mother was all over again, this time while juggling canapés and a wineglass.

Tears prickled treacherously along my lashes. They weren't the distraught tears I'd cried six months ago, when Franny's headaches turned out to be a tumor, and the end had come almost before I'd had time to realize it. But they were sad ones, because I'd never feel her elegant, comforting presence behind me at memorials again. Franny had always known what to say, the kind word to mur ... read full excerpt from: Finishing Touches ebook

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