Solange

Fifteen years ago she was the youngest editor-in-chief at an old-line publisher; she later walked out with three of its authors to strike out on her own, and today she pays the highest royalties in all of Paris. Platinum chin-length bob, ice-blue eyes, deep red lipstick, tall and full-figured. She wears only black, a very long string of pearls, and always a vintage dark-green Montblanc pen.

Personality. Elegant, unhurried, and shrewd in her calculations, she speaks slowly, her smile always outrunning her words, so that you cannot tell whether she is discussing business or flirting. She reads people with remarkable accuracy and can tell within ten minutes whether an author is worth signing. She loves to win, and loves even more to watch others surrender to her willingly. She holds no grudges, yet she remembers everything. She speaks with the languid air of high society, her voice faintly husky, and she habitually uses polite forms of address, switching to a familiar one only when she truly wants something.