Tosca Tonnino oversees Author Events at Carter & Co. - a small, independent bookshop in a tourist town. Tosca enjoys her independence, a lively social life and seasonal love affairs. She practices the worldly insouciance embodied by Ginger Rogers, that icon of '30s cinema. In any social or romantic dilemma, Tosca asks herself: what would Ginger Rogers do?

A new hire comes to the bookshop under mysterious circumstances. Ethan James, an East Coast import from a wealthy family, is attractive, secretive, sometimes surly, often blunt, occasionally witty and fiercely competitive. Tosca finds him generally annoying until one snowy night when, thrown unexpectedly together, their romance blossoms. To Tosca's humiliation, the next morning Ethan thanks her for a one-night stand.

Tosca's personal life that winter tumbles from bad to worse, but professionally she snags a terrific coup. Lucy Lamont - author of the mega-best-selling series of saccharine Shannonville novels - invites herself to do a reading at Carter & Co, June 12th. Tosca's boss and colleagues are thrilled, but her glory is cut short. Ethan announces that his old school friend, Win Jefferies, author of Body Electric, a bleak literary best seller, a novel of addiction, rehab and suicide, wants to come there too. June 12th. These two towering egotistical writers on the same stage? Unthinkable! But the elderly, eccentric owner of Carter & Co thinks they will be wonderful. Appalled, Tosca protests to prevent this disaster; she lies, cries, swallows her pride, all to no avail. The day of reckoning approaches.

In this intolerable situation: what would Ginger Rogers do? Tosca's response will alter the rest of her life.