From the author of I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE CAKE and HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER comes a heartfelt and suspenseful novel --- the story of friends struggling to fit together now that their lives haven't gone as planned, of how to separate the real from the fake.

From the author of I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE CAKE and HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER comes a heartfelt and suspenseful novel --- the story of friends struggling to fit together now that their lives haven't gone as planned, of how to separate the real from the fake.

A rollicking, modern twist on “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant’s classic tale of a 19th-century material girl, THE CLASP opens on a private island in Florida, as three hapless 20somethings gather for their friends’ wedding. For Kezia, the trip fails to deliver a break from her boss from hell, a jewelry designer in Manhattan. Nathaniel was a literary cool kid but now struggles to get Hollywood backing for his brainchild: a television show called “The Pretenders.” Victor was just fired from his job at a mediocre search engine, but his fortune --- and the fate of his friends --- changes dramatically when he begins snooping around and, in a drunken stupor, passes out in the groom’s mother’s bed. She slaps him awake, but instead of scolding him, she tells him an enticing secret about a valuable necklace that disappeared during the Nazi occupation of France.

Embarking on a madcap treasure hunt that leads from New York to Paris, with an excursion to the chateau where Maupassant was born, the trio struggles to interpret cryptic clues while separating fakes from the real thing --- not only in the world of gems, but also in life and love.