Meet Penelope O'Shaughnessy, Harvard freshman. To make friends at Harvard, she just has to be herself. But not too much. Armed only with her Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights poster and party conversation modelled on the repartee of Noel Coward, Penelope is bewildered by the apparent lack of kindred spirits on campus. And her roommates are baffling: Emma is busy signing up for insanely difficult courses and obsessing about something called a 'finals club'; and the rarely glimpsed Lan has painted her room black and shut the door. Gustav, a dashing, rumpled-linen-suit-wearing upperclassman of uncertain European origins who has caught Penelope's eye, never seems to be in the freshman dining hall, so it seems unlikely she will ever find out if he matches up to her hero, Hercule Poirot. Penelope follows our heroine's progress through her first year among America's elite, as she navigates the mysteries of life, love, inappropriate tutors, marionette operation and how to kiss on both cheeks and avoid disaster.