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On Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell's fictional alter ego Carrie Bradshaw agonized over what tone to set for her debut book. She finally decided to dedicate it to Charlotte York, a signal of the novel's optimistic tone.

Already three books into her real-life novelist career, Bushnell recognizes the significance of setting her own writing's tone through its dedication. Her latest release, Lipstick Jungle, shows a shift from previous works with a simple dedication to her "darling husband." Bushnell has discovered a secret passion: marriage.

This lifestyle change drives Bushnell toward a new sector of the female population in Lipstick Jungle. Gone are the single, sex-driven characters relying on men to maintain their lavish lifestyles. Instead, Bushnell opts for the scandals behind steady seven-figure salaries and enormous wedding rings to fuel her story line.

Lipstick Jungle chronicles three successful businesswomen and the delicate balances that characterize their lives. Amid marriage crisis, company revival and confidential affairs, fashion designer Victory Ford, magazine editor Nico O'Neilly and movie producer Wendy Healy dominate the world of glamorous success in New York City.

In typical Bushnell style, these characters and the plot that leads them are sidebars in a novel dominated by "the good life." Yes, Nico O'Neilly and Wendy Healy may be juggling family and career. But rest assured, that while O'Neilly hides her affair with a Calvin Klein model, her daughter rides horses five times a week and keeps a monthly hair and nail appointment at Bergdorf Goodman's. There will be no charges of child negligence in that multi-million dollar apartment.

Unlike previous Bushnell works, her female characters are not fighting for the man with the largest vacation home. Instead, these women are aligned together against the men out to get them professionally and personally. Appropriately, as Bushnell often stacks her characters against real-world players, all three characters are in the top twenty of "New York's 50 Most Powerful Women," a New York Post list topped by "future president" Hillary Clinton, a woman who may be the ultimate representation of the unrelenting feminine power threaded throughout Lipstick Jungle.

Chrissie Gorman