Party Favors - Nicole Sexton, Susan Johnston

Temple Sachet's got style, smarts, and the party planning gene in her blood. Having grown up in new Orleans, surrounded by the pageantry of Mardi Gras, Temple learned a thing or two about how to turn a fantastic party into a mney maker. It's a skill that pays of big when her gala of the Missouri Opera turns into a Ray of Hope internship at the White House. Within weeks, Temple's caught Potomac Fever - a hopeless, incurable addiction to D. C. for which there is only one cure: a nasty-tasting spoonful of disillusionment...

Temple rises quickly through the ranks of the Republican Party's fundraising elite, navigating a treacherous community of lobbyists  making deals for dollars, gossiping staffers, and childlike senators, to pe appointed the highly coveted position of Finance Director for the Republican Senate Campaign Committee. Her every waking moment is spent convincing the uber-rich and ultra eccentric to hand over the cash money green and, in the process, she learns everyone's secrets. Temple knows which senators can be manipulated by baked goods. which donors are most likely to pass out drunk at dinners, which chiefs of staff are still ''in the closet ''  and, unbelievably, which senators are actually good people, behaving with integrity even if no one is watching. She is envied, adored, respected, feared, and most of all needed as a fundraiser.

From the outside, Temple's life looks like one fantastic party, but on the inside she's tired of dating the wrong men and sleeping on the office floor. Her successes are measured in dollars, all of her status is derived from the politicians she knows personally, and all of her friendships stem from her career. But with her entire identity so wrapped up in D. C., can she walk away from it?