Last year the Overlook Press, previously best known for publishing literary fiction and reissuing the Freddy the Pig children's books, took a gamble and published a big, popular book, THE COMPANY by Robert Littell. Its success prompted the publisher to tackle an equally ambitious project this year. This time, though, the novel is so-called women's fiction, and the subject matter is not the history of the CIA but the equally turbulent history of a single British family. The good news is that NO ANGEL, with its superb plotting and wide cast of characters, is just as compulsively readable as any spy thriller.

The heroine of NO ANGEL is Lady Celia, a lovely debutante at the start of the novel, who sets her sights on Oliver Lytton, heir to an up-and-coming publishing firm. The year is 1904, and Celia's very proper society family is appalled by her desire to marry into "new money." Even more shocking, though, is Celia's desire to work in publishing herself. Despite her husband's misgivings, Celia joins the firm as a junior editor and surprises everyone by being absolutely brilliant at her work, soon rising through the ranks to work alongside Oliver and his sister, the imposing but secretly vulnerable LM. In the meantime, Celia is also having babies, and the challenges she faces in balancing the work she loves with her growing family will ring true for many modern working mothers.

Celia and Oliver work hard to build a life for themselves in London and soon find themselves at the center of a fabulous social circle that includes prominent writers, artists and politicians. Then World War I begins, and everything changes. Oliver spends four years at the front lines and comes back a shadow of his former self. Celia and LM, who have worked hard to keep the publishing house going in his absence, must cope with relinquishing power to the men when they return from the war. Soon, Celia, accustomed to making hard decisions in her professional life, finds herself torn by an incredibly difficult personal choice between passion and responsibility.

Although Lady Celia Lytton is the "no angel" of the book's title, and most of the novel's plots revolve around her intense personality, one of the book's riches is its immense cast of supporting players, most of whom are finely drawn, interesting characters in their own right. From Jack, Oliver's dashing but inept bachelor brother, to Barty, the young girl Celia plucks from poverty in a misguided charitable impulse, to Celia's mother, who harbors some pretty racy secrets of her own, the cast of characters spans generations, class boundaries and continents, and the plot touches all of them in turn. NO ANGEL is not great literature, but it does provide a certain level of emotional insight into all of these characters that is lacking in much popular fiction.

The plot itself rockets through all 600+ pages and the text, especially near the book's end, is broken up into small chunks of a paragraph or two, shifting the story rapidly from one character to another. If there's one flaw with the book, it's the numerous typographical errors and punctuation problems that riddle the text to the point of being distracting. The story also relies a little too heavily on coincidence and close calls, but that's OK --- that's what will keep readers turning the pages, waiting for a resolution.

Not all of the subplots are resolved, however. The author had to save something for the book's two sequels, which have already been published in the United Kingdom, where Penny Vincenzi has long been a bestselling author, and will be published in the United States by Overlook Press as well. For readers who devour NO ANGEL, these next installments in the Lytton family saga can't be published quickly enough.