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‘Sharp, provocative… You won’t be able to look away’ Observer

‘Acerbic… A lacerating comedy of manners’ Telegraph

Celine Wachowski is in free fall. The internationally renowned architect, host of a hit Netflix show and charismatic liberal icon, has just unveiled plans for a major project in her hometown of Montreal – the ravishing new headquarters for a multinational tech company. It should be the jewel in her glittering crown; but an initial spark of dissent ignites into a full-blown scandal, with Celine’s firm excoriated for destroying fragile communities, ushering in a new wave of gentrification and even deadlier crimes. As furious protestors and critical media chip away at her empire, Celine tries to shore up her splendid world that once seemed so secure.

With flowing prose that glints with irony, Kev Lambert infiltrates the upper echelons of society to depict the dreams and anxieties on which skyscrapers are built. This is a dazzlingly stylish social novel about the ways wealth shapes our world – and the seductive fictions of the powerful.

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Winner ofthe Prix Medicis, Prix Decembre and Prix Ringuet, and longlised for the Prix Goncourt

‘A novel about the housing crisis told from the perspective of those causing it… Lambert’s writing is lyrical and rapturous’ Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads