The Chocolate Money

Bettina Ballentyne is a chocolate heiress only by name; it is her glamorous and narcissistic mother, Babs, who lives up to the billing and plays by no one’s rules. Navigating a simultaneously treacherous and alluring landscape of wealth, sex, and decadence—first in her privileged childhood in Chicago and later at a top-tier east coast boarding school—Bettina must figure out how to reconcile her yearning for maternal affection with her mother’s take-no-prisoners-style parenting.Ashley Prentice Norton’s unflinching eye and acerbic wit capture Bettina’s coming of age with the perfect mixture of tragic and comic. Simultaneously sassy, deeply twisted, and uproariously funny, the novel’s sharp and sparkly humor will have you laughing during its darkest moments. A mesmerizing portrayal of the corrosive effects of an American fortune, The Chocolate Money is a shocking and intensely readable debut.Review"Debut author Norton, the great-great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, writes fearlessly, and the results are compelling. Reading this novel is like watching a train speed toward you, and you’re paralyzed on the tracks." --Booklist“Despite the sweet title, this debut novel by Ashley Prentice Norton is a dark tale of maternal sadism, twisted sex, and self-destruction. Norton is a fearless writer.”— James Frey, author of Bright Shiny Morning"I am not a reader easily shocked, and I was shocked by the brave twists and daring turns of Ashley Norton's compulsively readable The Chocolate Money. This story of a girl coming of age in Chicago, heir to a chocolate fortune and all the spoils and hungers that fortune sparks, is fearless and utterly unputdownable."— Jennifer Gilmore, author of Something Red and Golden Country"Not since Mommy Dearest  has there been a transcription of a complex mother-daughter relationship as powerful. I rooted with all my heart for this girl. Ashley Prentice Norton’s writing is so gripping, vivid, and moving — so realistically drawn — it leaves even the most well-adjusted reader with the chilling knowledge of what it’s like to be raised by wolves. The Chocolate Money is devastating and unforgettable."— Isabel Gillies, author of Happens Every Day and A Year and Six Seconds"The Chocolate Money  is the perfect page-turner, offering a window into the life of the richer-than-rich, complete with scandalous sex, wild parties, a snobby prep school, and a tyrannical train-wreck of a mother. But it's also something more—it’s a perceptive portrait of a young woman growing past the world that shaped her. Norton writes with empathy and wisdom about mothers and daughters, and the pain of loving a parent you must escape."-- Jill A. Davis, author of Ask Again Later“This is the darkest comedy I've ever read, overflowing with unflinching observations of the elite that are both laugh-out-loud and heart-wrenchingly poignant, all woven with the searing wit of a truly gifted new voice in fiction.”—Jill Kargman, author of Wolves in Chic ClothingAbout the AuthorAshley Prentice Norton is a graduate of Exeter, Georgetown, and the Creative Writing Program at New York University. The Chocolate Money is her first novel. She lives in New York with her husband and three children.