A sharply funny and wise debut novel about female friendship, the face we show the world online and letting your own light shine, from the Scotiabank Giller Prize–shortlisted author of This Cake Is for the Party

Lilian Quick has looked up to her cousin Florence her whole life. Florence is everything Lilian is not—brave, confident, quick to find adventure and American. The women have been out of touch for years due to a family rift, but Lilian, childless, single and self-employed as a pet portraitist, has been watching Florence for years. Florence is now Internet-famous as Eleven Novak, the face of a compelling new feminine lifestyle empowerment brand.

When Eleven comes to town as part of her sales tour, she offers Lilian a place at the Temple, her Manhattan office. Despite twenty years of silence, Eleven welcomes her long-lost cousin with open arms, and the two women begin a new relationship. Lilian quickly enrols in the Ascendency, Eleven’s signature program: an expensive three-month training seminar on empowered leadership, spiritual awakening, and sales and marketing. Eleven is going to help her cousin rise up to be her highest self: confident, affluent and self-actualized.

Lilian’s sensitive, artistic nature is stretched by the work she does in the Ascendency, and pushed even further by her cousin’s careful life coaching. In just three months, Lilian’s life changes drastically and becomes everything she’s dreamed of. But is it everything she wants? And can she trust everything Eleven says? 

A sharply funny debut novel about female friendship, the face we show the world online, and being a spiritual girl in a material world

I hear the sound of the Universe texting me . . .

Lilian Quick has looked up to her cousin Florence her whole life. Florence is everything Lilian is not—brave, confident, quick to find adventure . . . and American. The women have been out of touch for years due to a family rift, but Lilian, childless, single, and self-employed as a pet portrait artist, has
been watching Florence from afar. Florence is now Internet-famous as Eleven Novak, the face of a compelling new feminine lifestyle empowerment brand.

When Eleven, after a twenty-year silence, offers Lilian a place at her Manhattan office, it comes with a promise. She will help her cousin rise up to her highest self—confident, affluent, and self-actualized—if Lilian enrols in the brand’s signature program, the Ascendency.

In just months, Lilian’s life changes drastically: an apartment in New York, a spiritual awakening, a growing bank account, and a shocking amount of influence. It is all a dream come true. But is this Lilian’s dream? What does Eleven want from her? Who is Eleven, really, after all these years? And who does Lilian Quick truly want to be?

“Vibrant, poetic and salacious… It’s no wonder that Cake came so close to winning the Giller.”