Junior editor Stephanie Masters stumbles upon a literary gem in her employer's slush pile and envisions becoming the hottest young book publisher in New York. When she discovers she has hitched her hopes to an author who is unable to promote his own book she joins with friends to concoct a a fiction of her own - a marketable author who will appease her employer and charm the reading public. The ruse works well enough to take on a momentum and life of its own and she finds herself on a downhill ride in terms of her career and relationships.