Have You Met Nora?

She’s blossomed from wealthy surgeon’s beautiful daughter to elegant socialite to being the top fashion stylist in the country. And Nora Mackenzie is only days away from marrying into one of New York’s richest, most powerful families. But her fairy tale rise is rooted in an incredible deception—one scandal away from turning her perfect world to ashes . . .

What no one knows is that Nora is the biracial daughter of a Caribbean woman and a long-gone white father. Adopted—and abused—by her mother’s employer, then sent to an exclusive boarding school to buy her silence, Nora found that “passing” as a white woman could give her everything she never had. Every golden opportunity she seized and every deception she worked kept that powerless, forgotten girl forever in the past.

Now, an ex-classmate who Nora betrayed many years ago has returned to her life to even the score. She’s a woman who won’t be bought off, reasoned against, or pleaded with. Her machinations are turning Nora’s privilege into one gilded trap after another. Running out of choices, Nora must decide how far she will go to protect a lie or give up and finally face the truth.

Praise for Nicole Blades and Have You Met Nora?

“Silence your phone and reschedule lunch. Once you meet Nora, you'll want to see her through to the end of her captivating tale. Blades expertly peels back the layers of sinner, liar, victim and saint, ultimately revealing the humanity we share. An exquisitely written tale of a contemporary woman. Nora is tender, courageous and beautifully flawed. Nora is all of us.”
—Rosalind Noonan, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty, Nasty, Lovely

“If you think you’ve met Nora, you have another thing coming—and another one after that. As the days to Nora’s society wedding count down, so do her chances to thwart the exposure of a secret that, if revealed, could ruin the persona she has carefully crafted to portray.” —Susan Kietzman, author of Every Other Wednesday

“A winding story full of secrets, betrayal, revenge, and love. One that considers whether someone can fully embrace their future while being chased by the ghosts of their past, and at what point avoiding that past is no longer an option.” 
—Rena Olsen, author of The Girl Before

“Nicole Blades has created a heroine both honorable and deceptive, both vulnerable and powerful, a heroine whose choices are at times shocking but arguably necessary. It is near impossible not to cheer Nora Mackenzie’s ultimate triumph over a childhood of cruelty and loss, even if that terrible past compels her to extreme behavior in order to achieve a life of security and love.” —Holly Chamberlin, author of The Season of Us

“If Gillian Flynn wrote a 21st Century take on Imitation of Life, it would be this book. A fascinating page-turner, Have You Met Nora? is smart, funny, and wholly unexpected.” 
—Attica Locke, author of Pleasantville, producer and writer for Fox TV’s Empire
  
“Have You Met Nora? is stunning, riveting, and positively unpredictable. This is a deft and searing commentary on identity and race. Nicole Blades has written a book that feels effortless to read and yet pulls no punches, offering a point of view that is piercing and uncompromising. You will be thinking about this book long after it’s over.” 
—Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Nicole Blades is a novelist and journalist. Her features and essays have appeared in Cosmopolitan, NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, Health, MarieClaire.com, SELF, BuzzFeed, and BlogHer. Born and raised in Montreal, Nicole now lives in Connecticut with her husband and their son. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleBlades. And visit her online at NicoleBlades.com.