Melania and me : the rise and fall of my friendship with the First Lady / Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

What Melania wants, Melania gets.

The former director of special events at Vogue and producer of nine legendary Met Galas, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff met Melania Knauss in 2003 and had a front row seat to the transformation of Donald Trump's then girlfriend from a rough-cut gem to a precious diamond. As their friendship deepened over lunches at Manhattan hot spots, black-tie parties, and giggle sessions in the penthouse at Trump Tower, Wolkoff watched the newest Mrs. Trump raise her son, Barron, and manage her highly scrutinized marriage.

After Trump won the 2016 election, Wolkoff was recruited to help produce the 58th Presidential Inaugu­ration and to become the First Lady's trusted advisor. Melania put Wolkoff in charge of hiring her staff, organizing her events, helping her write speeches, and creating her debut initiatives. Then it all fell apart when she was made the scapegoat for inauguration finance irregularities. Melania could have defended her innocent friend and confidant, but she stood by her man, knowing full well who was really to blame. The betrayal nearly destroyed Wolkoff.

In this candid and emotional memoir, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff takes you into Trump Tower and the White House to tell the funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking story of her intimate friendship with one of the most famous women in the world, a woman few people truly understand.

How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband's affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with "I really don't care, do u?" printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? And what really happened with the inauguration's funding of $107 million? Wolkoff has some ideas...

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Prologue: Just Another Lunch (p. 1)
• 1 How to Marry a Billionaire (p. 9)
• 2 Opposites Attract (p. 27)
• 3 The Campaign Year (p. 49)
• 4 The Setup (p. 66)
• 5 Showtime (p. 130)
• 6 White House-keeping (p. 155)
• 7 Trial by February (p. 189)
• 8 The Shutdown (p. 224)
• 9 Be Best (p. 245)
• 10 The Takedown (p. 280)
• 11 Just Friends (p. 312)
• Epilogue: I'm Still Here (p. 337)
• Acknowledgments (p. 341)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Yet another tell-all from a disgruntled Trump administration ex, this time from the East Wing. "Imagine if your close friend suddenly, unexpectedly, became one of the most powerful, influential women in the whole world," writes Wolkoff, the founder of a consulting agency and former director of special events for Vogue, in this tedious, opportunistic memoir. A few years later, the author read this headline on the front page of the New York Times: "Trump's Inaugural Committee Paid $26 Million to First Lady's Friend." As Wolkoff writes, "my personal compensation for my work on the inauguration that I retained was $480,000….Many people working on the inauguration made far more than I did." To be fair, the author is one of countless victims of the Trump propensity for stiffing former employees and then smearing them publicly, and she notes that, after attorney fees, she is "in the hole almost a million dollars." The book deal should help recoup some of those expenses. Though the author sets the record straight in mind-numbing detail--more than 80 pages cover the day-by-day planning of the inauguration--she offers scant fresh information about Melania or her husband's administration. Was Melania upset about the Access Hollywood tape? No. Is she close with Ivanka? No. Throughout the book, which is about 100 pages too long, the author documents her relationship with her former friend via the many texts they exchanged, replete with heart emojis and effusive declarations of love--e.g., "I LOVE YOU…XOXO." For far too long, the author admits, she was stuck in "Mel-La-Lania Land," but she fails to provide enough interesting material from behind the wall. The best news coming from the book is that at least one 2016 voter has changed her mind about DJT, as he is called here. The kind of book a therapist might tell you to write to get it out of your system. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.