When Maggie Tang arrives as a transfer-student at UC Berkeley in 2005, she has no idea how her life is about to change. She meets Adam, Charles, and Hari, the friends with whom she’ll create Circle, the world’s first major social media platform. But navigating her ambitions alongside love and friendship isn’t so simple, and when they inevitably collide, Maggie exits Circle in dramatic fashion. A decade later, Maggie is struggling when she receives an invitation to celebrate Circle’s 10th anniversary on a private island in Norway, with the three people she has tried hardest to forget. But the journalist writing a retrospective on Circle is eager for a scoop, which means they can’t tiptoe around the past forever. And when a new truth is revealed about their fallout all those years ago, Maggie will have to decide whether to run again or fight for a second chance with the people she once loved most.

Lulu has always been taught that money is the ticket to a good life. So when Shanghai’s most eligible bachelor surprises her with a proposal, the only acceptable answer is yes, even if the voice inside her head is saying no. His family’s fortune would solve all her parents’ financial woes, but Lulu isn’t in love or ready for marriage. The only people she can confide in are her two best friends: Rina, who is tired of being passed over for promotion while her male colleagues are rewarded; and Jane, a sharp-tongued, luxury-chasing housewife desperate to divorce her husband and trade up. Each of them desires something different: freedom, time, beauty. None of them can get it without money. Lulu’s wedding is their golden opportunity. The social event of the season, it means more than enough cash gifts to transform the women’s lives.